> GP just meant that they had a bunch of interpreted language OOP developers (probably Java or C# or something like that), and they wanted them to start writing code in an AOT-compiled language (yes, I know about Graal native image; not the point).
JIT vs. AOT is not the same as being an interpreted language. For most applications, running on top of the virtual machine is a good thing, I don't see JVM developers turning to different languages just to escape the JVM, outside of some niche projects.
Also, without claiming that experienced c/c++ developers never write memory safety bugs, I don't think it's at all controversial to say inexperienced c/c++ developers write a lot of them (and hopefully experienced ones write way fewer).
(Also not the point, C# can be AOT-compiled as well these days)
I think you're reading too much into that and creating conflict where there isn't any. GP just meant that they had a bunch of interpreted language OOP developers (probably Java or C# or something like that), and they wanted them to start writing code in an AOT-compiled language (yes, I know about Graal native image; not the point). And that teaching them Rust is probably going to result in safer code than if they were to teach them C or C++.
That shouldn't be a controversial statement.