Totally subjective, but for me Rusts symbols seem like a good trade-off, where the readability cost paid is worth the gained expressiveness. In comparison, Perl

Totally subjective, but for me Rusts symbols seem like a good trade-off, where the readability cost paid is worth the gained expressiveness. In comparison, Perl has a terse syntax that harms readability more than it helps in other ways. Again, that's subjective. Apart from that, Perl is not a substitute for Rust or vice versa, regardless of the amount of typing involved.