As someone who has worked on a systems programming language for a long time, my strongest advice would be to avoid trying to make syntactic or semantic choices that are just different unless they're really motivated by making the systems aspect better, or to make the language more self-coherent. Having surprises and syntax to learn is a barrier to entry and probably won't impress anyone.
That is to say, do focus on systems problems. Key ones I identified are efficient data representation, avoiding needless memory churn/bloat, and talking directly to lower-level software/hardware, like the kernel.
Focus on systems programming and not on syntactic niceties or oddities.
That is to say, do focus on systems problems. Key ones I identified are efficient data representation, avoiding needless memory churn/bloat, and talking directly to lower-level software/hardware, like the kernel.
Focus on systems programming and not on syntactic niceties or oddities.