That seems like a bold claim? I've also been writing Python for a decade and it takes no time at all to whip up a small script. I have no doubts the Rust version will be much faster, but stepping into a new language would take me at least longer to write the script than an equivalent version in Python. Plus there's all the other stuff to learn.

Once you get past learning the basic syntax (creating variables, loop structure, assignment/etc.), you still have to pick up new things, like executing your work with parallelism, downloading files, parsing and dumping JSON, connecting to databases... Each new topic introduces a bunch of stuff that takes a little bit to figure out. I guess you could get through most of it in a few hours though if you had the right problem to work on.

But still, there's the muscle memory aspect. Can a new language really sink in so fast that it's faster to use than Python after 10 years of writing Python?

I'm not sure I understand. Was the typo in something like a dict key? Or did you add two of the wrong variables together? How did another language protect you from this? I fail to see how you couldn't also add two of the wrong variables (with the correct type) together in a different language.