Thanks for the detailed answer. Preaching to the choir.

The existence of the concept of ownership in languages like C++ is why I threw “moderately” in there. I agree depending on what you take that to mean, it may or may not do some heavy lifting.

For the rest, I’d divide it into hard facts (compiler messages are absolutely undeniable, in any circumstance) and things that can definitely be true depending on your personal use cases. I’m with you on this: for the vast vast majority of tasks commonly understood as software engineering, memory safety is a concern, and a lot, if not all, of your points, are valid.

I must humbly insist that it does not fit my needs, in the sense that memory safety is of no concern to me, and that the restrictions that a compiler-enforced approach imposes make me less productive, and, subjectively, also less enjoyable because causing more friction.

That being said, you may also not consider what I’m currently doing to be software engineering, and that’s totally fine. Then we’d agree entirely.

EDIT: also, there are very few languages less productive and beginner-friendly than C++ in my opinion. The proverbial bar is in hell. But you are talking to an unreasonable C++ hater.