I recently returned to writing C++ after a 17-year gap and I have concluded that C++ has become the stupidest language in contemporary common use and fans of the language are living in some form of mass delusional insanity.
When I wrote C++ from about 1993 to 2003 it was basically "C with Classes" and it claimed to guide you away from C spaghetti code into the superior and trendy OOP world of software development. That claim was generally fulfilled, but I often found myself creating classes that didn't need to exist, and there was always the risk of creating "spaghetti classes". It's worth noting that opinions of OOP have not aged well and web searches for "OOP sucks" or "OOP is bad" will produce some withering criticism.
Upon returning to C++ after a long absence, I am shocked and angered by what I have found. Several major enhancements over the decades have added so many features to the language with so much syntax that it looks like an unstoppable academic research project that went out of control and became a joke. And ironically, the community using the language don't seem to realise they're part of the joke.
I have recently watched lots of videos about C++, and the ones taken at conventions are the most worrying because people like Bjarne and Herb come on stage and are cheered like heroes by an audience that uncritically drools over upcoming C++ features that are discussed in great detail. What makes me both angry and incredulous is that most of the recently added and upcoming C++ features are either making the language more and more complex, or they are features that have been built-in to other popular programming languages for a lifetime.
Languages like Java and C# have had parallelism, reflection, networking support, UI designers, modules and much more for decades, but here we are in the far distant science fiction future of 2022 and the C++ committees are only now proposing to add these features that are vital for software development. C++ is so far behind the ecosystem of other modern languages that it's another joke they don't get, and they continue to blindly cram the language with more libraries and syntax stolen from other languages to try and keep it up to date with its modern contemporaries.
Writing C++ is so staggeringly complex that I need cheat-sheets always open, and sometimes I must Google search on how to write every line of code correctly. As a result, my C++ coding speed often hovers at around 10 to 20 lines of code per hour. It took me 3 solid days of hair-tearing suffering to find a library that made REST web service calls, compile it, and make it work. A colleague took two days to get a zip library working and at one point he said, "lucky I don't live near a cliff". Both of those tasks could be coded in a few lines of a modern language in less than a minute.
Have a look at the Working Draft or the C++ Reference to get a feel for the astonishing complexity of C++. There are countless videos online as well that discuss all of the frightening traps and tricks of C++ coding and how to use the huge list of language features correctly (see Jason Turner's videos). The complexity of C++ creates a huge learning hurdle for even the most skilled developer who could require up to a year of intensive experience to become an expert.
C++ doesn't have a public library system (like packages or crates), the error messages are beyond mortal comprehension, you can't tell which language features are "safe" to use on your platform, everyone argues about the best coding patterns, and most sample code won't compile. In my words (which can often be heard shouted from the other end of the house) … "Everything f***ing doesn't work!!". In C++, everything is as ridiculously cryptic and difficult as it can possibly be. I often joke that writing C++ is harder than building an atomic clock.
The C++ fanbase brags about how widespread its usage is and how many diverse and performance critical systems depend upon it, but I think this is just a historical hangover because it grew out of the popularity of C back when there were no alternatives. I saw C++ become trendy and cool back in the 1990s and it developed a kind of aura or mystique about it, mainly because it was so complex and intimidating to average developers of the time. If you told people you were writing C++ you could often see reverent "Oh you're a real programmer" looks on their faces. C++ just happened to arrive at the right time to fill a void and I think the C++ community is still living in the 1990s.
The other C++ brag is about how it is "close to the metal" and can produce apps with unequalled performance. C++ continues to ride high on its performance claims, but it's become an urban legend that's no longer a compelling argument. Recent research by my own colleagues with nearly identical cross-tabulation libraries written in C# and C++ finds that the C++ library only performs slightly better when very large amounts of data are being processed, which results in very large in-memory tables.
Even if optimised C++ does produce more performant native binaries, who needs that? Typical business apps are not performance critical and writing them quickly in C#, Swift, Java or Python will save immeasurable money and suffering. Maybe C++ is vital in creating database engines, embedded systems or niche scientific applications, but in the last 15 years I have never met a single living developer who works in any of those industries and needs to expend enormous effort to squeeze out top performance. You would have to be out of your mind to consider using C++ to write a desktop app, or a background service, or a web service for business use in 2022. If you asked me to write a Windows desktop app or web service in C++, it would take at least 20 times longer than writing it in C#.
In summary, I will reiterate without embarrassment that C++ is the most utterly stupid programming language in popular use, it's getting stupider, and its community is living in a world of delusion.
C++ should be deprecated now and go into maintenance mode.
One would normally recommend that all development effort be channelled into designing a modern replacement for C++, but what's the point, because robust and respected alternatives are already available.
Bjarne often talks about the "ideal C++" and how it will never stop evolving. By the time it reaches his "ideal" it will be extinct.
