If you're looking for C-like though, you are probably not in any modern-featured language designer's aim.

It was implied by the context of "ML" languages. That was my intention at least; I thought ML languages were characteristically safe.

Regarding "C-like", I mostly mean syntax. I'm not too familiar with the ML family, but many FP languages have bizarre syntax which amplifies the difficulty of learning new concepts IMO.

Because you are. You likely wrote widly unsafe things which are perfectly legal in C++. Rust is really just enforcing RAII which C++14 already has, and you've likely avoided.

Yes go also claims to be C replacement, but probably the only similarity is its simplicity, but unlike C it is not as expressive.

Rust was aiming at innovating and advancing the PL space with meaning. I can't say looking back the time I invested with Go was well-spent.

Rust is probably worth the effort if you have the need for what it offers. It just requires more out of you than Go does.

Once IDEs start coming around it should be quite competitive. I'll admit to thinking the same thing: I'll use Rust for the absolute critical parts, then F# for the rest. But more and more parts I'm writing are easy enough to do in Rust, and I get the perf as a bonus.