Just wait

Having never used the Go language, I managed to "cut'n'paste" my way into writing a useful (and also stylistically and functionally correct) patch against Docker. So in principle you *should* be right about your first level of "knowing" a language concept.

However, unlike Go, I find Rust hard to skim over -- for the lack of a better word, it's too "syntax-y" for my brain :) So your "anyone should be able to deal with it" statement is actually a much bigger ask than you think, depending on the actual language's legibility to newcomers.

I then tried working my way through "The Rust Programming Language", and was mostly able to follow along and understand what's going on, and even managed to write ok-ish small programs in the process.

But without being a real, $DAYJOB Rust programmer, when I look at production code a few months later, it's back to a wall-of-syntax "foo::bar => <blah:::xyz>" incomprehensible gibberish... :D
This may be just an undiagnosed learning disability on my part, or it might be that Rust syntax is simply less legible to a large swath of the otherwise OK programmer population.

I'm also constantly high-key annoyed at how compiling a program involves downloading crap off the Internet, as part of the compilation process (this is the part where I might just be old and grumpy, and the whole download-crap-from-the-Internet thing is interfering with my lawn care routine).

Anyhow, if kernel maintainers' experience is anything like mine, I can't blame them for putting a "low pass filter" on this thing: maybe it goes away if they ignore it long enough, and they won't have to waste time on it.

Now, if based on the description of my pain points above there's a more targeted way of learning Rust in a way that sticks, I'm happy to take hints and advice...