> You might not want to make that strong assertion without spending some time with the language. Rc/Arc exist or if you want to build a GC into Rust nothing is stopping that. You can break out unsafe and start hacking away, in fact that's what the arena allocator crates do today.

You're misreading what I said. I didn't say that Rust doesn't have Rc<T>/Arc<T> (given that I explicitly mentioned it in other comments). My point was that in order for Rust's approach to memory management to be worthwhile, automatic memory management cannot be viable (or you get a much simpler way of ensuring memory safety). Rust also offering a limited form of automatic memory management does not change that.

> The space where memory and performance matter has very few options, which is why you see those of us who spend time in that area excited about Rust.

I did not deny that Rust is an interesting option if automatic memory management is not a viable approach.