> I'd often joke, "I love Rust, but what I really want is a simpler Haskell with a C-like syntax" or "I love Rust, but if it had a garbage collector, Rust would be my perfect language".

OCaml is a simpler Haskell, but I don't think it has a C-like syntax. However, rescript[0], the JavaScript like syntax for OCaml based Hindley Milner typed language might actually fit well for small and personal projects.

[0] https://rescript-lang.org/docs/manual/v8.0.0/introduction