Rust is absolutely a technical improvement on some of the listed languages (C, C++, maybe FORTRAN and COBOL). The borrow checker is truly novel outside of some research languages that precede Rust. The other languages you list are sufficiently different from Rust that it’s hard to make a comparison.
Of course Rust is a technical improvement over substantially older languages. To claim otherwise is basically to claim that the twin fields of programming language theory and language design have discovered and achieved nothing in the last 40 years, which is an strange thing to believe.
Of course Rust is a technical improvement over substantially older languages. To claim otherwise is basically to claim that the twin fields of programming language theory and language design have discovered and achieved nothing in the last 40 years, which is an strange thing to believe.