I'd argue that talking about C's simplicity requires one big caveat... it gains that simplicity by delegating a lot of essential complexity to the underlying pl

I'd argue that talking about C's simplicity requires one big caveat... it gains that simplicity by delegating a lot of essential complexity to the underlying platform and the spec leaves a lot of details up to the compiler writers. While I'm sure experienced C developers will be used to that, one cannot simply read The C Programming Language, set a language reference on their desk, and safely learn how C will behave through experience because of all the unspecified or counter-intuitive things which often don't even trigger compiler warnings with -Weverything. While Rust may have more concepts to grasp and more grammar to remember, I find it far less of a mental burden to code in for the same reason that OOP proponents trumpet encapsulation... C forces me to constantly double-check that I haven't forgotten some detail of the language or GCC's implementation which is sensible if you understand the low-level implementation, but completely counter to my intuition. Rust allows me to audit the heck out of modules containing unsafe code to make sure the unsafety can't escape, then set it aside to think about another piece of the logic. Rust also places a stronger emphasis on making it possible to reason locally, bolstered by things like hygienic macros. Finally, simplicity does not automatically make something intuitive. (That's something I hear quite commonly among HCI people bemoaning how Apple has brilliantly used simplicity to convince iOS users that, if they get stumped by the UI, it's their own fault, not a failing on Apple's part.)