There is truth to that, the "something else" is a different set of trade-offs for some other things that have usually been associated with FP languages.
Rust feels like the love-child of part of ocaml (for the sum types), part of C (very small runtime, ability to generate native code, interrop with C libs, etc..), part of npm (package manager integrated with tooling, large discoverable list of libraries), etc...
Borrow-checking seems a bit newer-ish - but I'm pretty sure there is an academic FP language that pionnered some of the research.
No-one is planning to give Rust the medal of best-ever-last-ever language any time soon.
Rust feels like the love-child of part of ocaml (for the sum types), part of C (very small runtime, ability to generate native code, interrop with C libs, etc..), part of npm (package manager integrated with tooling, large discoverable list of libraries), etc...
Borrow-checking seems a bit newer-ish - but I'm pretty sure there is an academic FP language that pionnered some of the research.
No-one is planning to give Rust the medal of best-ever-last-ever language any time soon.
And none of that is a "bad thing" (tm.)