Let’s pretend for a moment that this SaferC exists. Is it also backward compatible with C? Will it require special keywords in the language, like unsafe, to call into original C? This would be the primary benefit, right?

Now, also, will this new SaferC also bring with it any of the other features people appreciate in Rust? Such as data race free code (because of the strong type/trait system and Send/Sync auto types), or match and let statements that support destructuring of types through pattern matching, or monomorphism for zero overhead polymorphism, or the simple to use tools around the language for managing dependencies, or async programming model that strips away all the complexity of hand written state machines?

For me, all of those features make Rust a modern 2020 language. I’m curious what a SaferC would have. And frankly, if it could exist, why hasn’t it been developed in the last 50 years?

No need to pretend, take a look at D as better C? [1]

[1] https://dlang.org/blog/2017/08/23/d-as-a-better-c/

Yes. That’s a great post, but betterC is not directly backward compatible with C. D also lacks many of the features that I’ve grown to like about Rust.

But, let’s say you’re right. D is SaferC—are the folks who are still waiting for a SaferC able to recognize it as such? Or, have they already decided that like Rust it doesn’t meet the criteria of the language that they’re waiting for?