Totally fair @eska and @bluGill. I really wasn't thinking in terms of "This is the right way to manage a project." I was simply trying to identify some way to do a better and more accurate comparison between Rust and C++.

You're perfectly right that it would be awful to be pitched against each other in this way.

So I recant my suggestion, but maintain my critique about using lines of code in a single project as somehow validating a language choice. There are too many variables. And, more to the point, the refactored code will almost always be much better, regardless of the language selected.