Cyclone has been around some 2002 according to Wikipedia. I don’t think a similar language (RAII + annotations + a mostly-mandatory validation step in the compiler) has had a well funded and sustained marketing campaign until rust, though. RAII also predates Rust by a couple decades.
Rust is also not very similar to itself from its early days.
Oh, I didn't know about Cyclone - that's cool! I wasn't trying to say that rust isn't influenced by languages that came before it.
I mean that, when they decided it was time to make a new language, the team would have had some understanding of what the language would be like. That understanding couldn't come from using the language itself (it doesn't exist yet). Instead, teams do cultural work to communicate & come to shared understandings about what the language they are making "should be like." That shared understanding survives past when the language is working and influences decisions to improve the language.
It's just worth considering and talking about project culture! It's common for there to be many possible improvements to a language and have the culture of the project (or wider community) be what tips the scales.
Cyclone has been around some 2002 according to Wikipedia. I don’t think a similar language (RAII + annotations + a mostly-mandatory validation step in the compiler) has had a well funded and sustained marketing campaign until rust, though. RAII also predates Rust by a couple decades.
Rust is also not very similar to itself from its early days.