Yes, I learnt Rust as a JavaScript/PHP/Python programmer who needed better performance for a project, and I'd thoroughly recommend it as a first low-level language. I found it much easier to learn than C++. There were a few new concepts to learn, but:

- There were far fewer than C++.

- The Rust Book provided a free and very approachable resource for learning them.

- The Rust compiler gave me immediate feedback if I was doing something wrong (no unexpected bugs in production)

- Most of my JS skills translated pretty straightforwardly

- /r/rust has a very helpful community which filled in any gaps that weren't covered elsewhere.

C is simple when you're working with toy examples, but as soon as you try to do anything moderately complex the complexity quickly jumps. e.g. If I wan't to use something as basic as a HashMap this is a trivial import in Rust or C++, but a non-trivial task in C. You either have to build/import a library (which is not that easy in C), or write one yourself! Same for string operations!

We have a lot of people who come from ruby/python/js, and/or haskell/ocaml/scala. They find Rust an easier foray into systems languages than C++.

And even some C veterans who never got on board the C++ train.

Parent was suggesting they are already a programmer, so I assumed they already had at least a grasp of how pointers and manual memory management work. If one happens to lack such knowledge, I agree learning C is an excellent first step.

I think what made RAII seem like a good idea was seeing a large C code base at a major company which had a consistent approach to cleanup and error handling. It's very possible to write good code that way, but it takes manual effort, discipline, consistency. At that point I understood that RAII was about letting the compiler handle what I was already doing in C.