Ask HN: Modern Alternatives to C

Recently with a group of friends I decided to start creating a web browser from the ground up using as few libraries as possible and I wanted to do it in C. I persuaded everyone to learn and start using C, because I personally had a sweet spot for C and I've seen many great applications written in C so I wanted to pay homage to the great developers who coded great software in C.

But none of us were familiar with C and graphical libraries such as Xlib and Cairo so it was and is a big learning experience for all of us. However, learning C and Xlib has become a massive hurdle for us. The problem is that C is a remarkably old language and the available learning resources are very old. Most of the information in books have become obsolete as standards and libraries have changed and and updated. The C communities have turned into ghost-towns with the latest posts being from several years ago. And worst of all, an unbelievably large chunk of C code on the internet cannot be compiled due to changes in standards and changes in libraries.

I think while it was a novel attempt to try to do the whole project in C with the bare minimums, it is very unproductive. It took out the confidence and fire in all of us so now I'm looking at some of the modern languages as a replacement for C. I still would like to keep it relatively low leveled and be in control. From my knowledge GO and Rust seem to be a modern take on C.

GO and Rust have caught my attention because they seem to have an active community, both allow the programmer to be in charge, and they perform quite well.

I'm asking you for advice and really like to hear your thoughts. Do you think Rust or GO would be suitable? Do you recommend other languages? What do you think?

I am interested to read your thoughts.