If I where to write a small command line tool utility that needs to be fast, safe and lean I would definitely write it in Rust. It's got the tooling C++ don't (

If I where to write a small command line tool utility that needs to be fast, safe and lean I would definitely write it in Rust. It's got the tooling C++ don't (cargo), the ability to statically compile a minimal binary that small and fast (because we don't pay for abstraction like C++) and allow me to write reasonably clean code using functional paradigm. It is reasonably easy to interface with C code (did that recently to access libelf and fuse). Unit testing and documentation is embedded with the language. So, I agree with you, it will probably not become a replacement, but it succeeded in providing a credible alternative that has been used by many already.