I believe bringing up Rust in a discussion like this is completely warranted. After all, both Rust and C++ try to achieve similar goals (C++ also has a goal of maintaining backward compatibility with decades worth of code, which Rust doesn't yet have). Rust might not be quite there yet, but I believe the future is either Rust (or other similar language) becoming "mainstream", or C++ changing radically (and offering a "compatibility mode", perhaps).