Is rust code heavily seasoned with unsafe keyword really that hard to prototype in?
Is it meaningfully harder than c++ in this regard?
Is it meaningfully harder than c++ in this regard?
I'd have an easier time prototyping in Rust than C++, and I've been writing C++ for 10 years and Rust for a little over a year.
However, prototype in something like Ruby (or even TypeScript, and some people mentioned Elixir) is in a different universe compared to C++ or Rust.
Like, it's not even a "fair fight" to compare it meaningfully.
I find that modern C++ "kitchen sink" approach to features makes it good for rapid prototyping, a bit like Perl on the dynamic side. It won't force you into a specific approach, pick the one that gets you there the fastest. Use raw pointers and malloc(), or use fancy smart pointers and RAII, your choice, you can also do both, you have exceptions, you have goto, you can write(), printf() and cout, you have classes and lambdas and (multiple) inheritance and traits. More options are better for rapid prototyping.
Also, C++ is the most popular language for competitive programming, you can't get more "rapid" than that.
Now that I say that, I guess someone could write an "unsound helper functions" library that helps you write code full of UB conveniently. It could be an interesting thought experiment. But I don't think the community would be very happy about it...