Last I checked Zig is more concerned about overflow conditions than Rust(numeric overflow, stack overflow, OOM etc.) and boasts features in that vein - so it c

Last I checked Zig is more concerned about overflow conditions than Rust(numeric overflow, stack overflow, OOM etc.) and boasts features in that vein - so it competes, but not in the same territory. If you are writing a kernel it's highly likely that you'll end up in a lot of scenarios where you have to use unsafe Rust, in which case Zig would be the better language for the task. Admittedly, it would be nice to have some of both, and they both have room to get better. But I see Rust as more of a "libraries and applications" centric setup, where it's the right thing for a web browser and the wrong thing for a device driver.