I don't like many of the syntax choices either (e.g. the function return type syntax borrows from, but is not consistent with ML/Haskell). However, the language

I don't like many of the syntax choices either (e.g. the function return type syntax borrows from, but is not consistent with ML/Haskell). However, the language and tooling is already a huge improvement over C and there is already a significant community and lots of momentum. I wouldn't let a few syntactic warts put me off what could be a major improvement in the standard of systems programming.