Given your conclusion there, in what ways do you wish Rust strings were similar to C++ strings?
That is to say, I had huge expectations for Rust, that it did not (yet) meet. It really made me think about what I wanted from a systems language, and what is possible.
Please don't read this as a screed against the future of Rust, just the present, which didn't really enthrall me enough to learn more of vs C++11
I haven't been following Rust closely, so this is the first I've heard about the string/slice distinction. But I have spent a lot of time trying to remove unnecessary allocations/deallocations/copies from performance-critical, string-heavy C++ code. I use a combination of custom allocators and slice-like objects, but both of these approaches make it a hassle to interact with code using the natural std::string.
A pervasive distinction between strings that manage their own memory and those that don't, along with language and library support to make using them in combination straightforward would be a big win for me.
Strings got re-done like ~2 months ago, so don't feel too bad ;)