To be fair, I wouldn't quite label it as "absurd", though it is hyperbole. With near-extreme levels of discipline you can write very solid C code - this involves having ~100% MCDC coverage, using sanitizers, static analysis tools, and likely outright banning a few functions. It's doable, especially if your project doesn't have to move fast or has extreme requirements (spaceships).
> Can you guide me to some Rust programs that are smaller than their C counterparts.
Rust has a big standardlib compared to C++ so by default you end up with a lot of "Extra" stuff that helps deal witht hings like unicode, etc. If you drop std and dynamically link your libraries you can drop a lot of space and get down to C levels.
There are a number of examples like this: https://cliffle.com/blog/bare-metal-wasm/
> is the (apparently) enormous size of the development environment relative to a GCC toolchain.
I can't really relate to this. I have a 1TB SSD, 32GB of ram, and an 8 core CPU. My rust build tools are a single command to install and I don't know or care how much space they take up. If you do, I don't really know why, but sure that's a difference maybe.
> All programmers are not created equal no matter what languages they use
While this is true, it doesn't matter practically.
1. We can't restrict who writes C, so even if programmer skill was the kicker, it isn't enforceable.
2. There are lots of projects that invest absolutely incredible amounts of time and money, cutting edge research, into writing safe low level code. Billions are spent on this. And the problem persists. Very very few projects seem to be able to achieve "actually looks safe" C code.
> Memory-safe languages are great but it seems like they just enable people to become far too ambitious in what they think they can take on.
I don't really see how Rust is any different from Python, Java, or anything else in that regard.