It really depends on how you measure productivity.
But also, I don’t think that “makes you think about memory” is that simple. I don’t have to think about memory in Rust very often at all: that’s what the compiler is for! When I make a mistake, it corrects me, and I’ve only thought about it for a few moments.
> But also, I don’t think that “makes you think about memory” is that simple. I don’t have to think about memory in Rust very often at all: that’s what the compiler is for! When I make a mistake, it corrects me, and I’ve only thought about it for a few moments.
Ok, you don't think about it, but the back-and-forth with the compiler still takes a nonzero amount of time that you don't have to deal with in a GC language. At least not until you start to hit upon GC performance issues, at which point the value proposition shifts in Rust's favor, which ultimately brings me back to my point about it being an issue of tradeoffs and my skepticism about Rust-as-silver-bullet.
But you do pay up front! That's a big deal if your design is not set in stone (which is not a synonym for "prototyping").
(Again, as always, YMMV.)
Of course, Rust gives you a lot in exchange for the reduced velocity--safety and performance; however, those are tradeoffs and we should talk about them as such. It feels dishonest to present Rust as "as productive as Python" even with the "(given enough experience)" caveat.