Of course syntax is important. Otherwise people wouldn't complain about perl or C (eg wrt lack of operator overloading). It is just important in balance with semantics. And while I understand why rust compromised on this, IMHO it was a mistake that causes confusion about rust's memory management strategy. It looks too much like java and not enough like a language built around specific memory management paradigms. This compromise has backfired.
Of course syntax is important. Otherwise people wouldn't complain about perl or C (eg wrt lack of operator overloading). It is just important in balance with semantics. And while I understand why rust compromised on this, IMHO it was a mistake that causes confusion about rust's memory management strategy. It looks too much like java and not enough like a language built around specific memory management paradigms. This compromise has backfired.