Before you chime in with some snarky comment about some superficial aspect of the language (like, say, the name), please try to realize that C++ is still one of the most widely-used languages in the world -- for a reason. And if you find yourself about to post something of the form "why would they add [feature X]...python/ruby/haskell/blub has had that for years", please stop and take a deep breath. Realize that it takes a long time to add features to a language that has to be standardized by committee and deployed to as many platforms as C++ has today.
You may like ruby/python/blub better, but that's a bit like saying "I like my swiss army knife better than my chainsaw". Your swiss army knife will do fine in a lot of different situations, but you're not going to cut down many trees with it. Nor would you try to open a package with a chainsaw.
When you say "C++ is still one of the most widely-used languages in the world", you're implicitly lumping C in with it. C/C++ is certainly one of the most widely-used languages, but there are whole huge categories of products that are almost never written in C++.
Some of us appreciate bare-metal systems programming, but loathe C++.
No I'm not. C++ is widely used in part because it's backwards-compatible with C, but it's not even remotely a stretch to say that C++ is one of the most widely-used languages in the world, on its own.
It's not a stretch to say that because you aren't actually saying anything. Leaving the distribution undefined as you did, we could also claim that Haskell is one fo the most widely-used languages in the world: it's certainly used more than CASL, the scripting language I wrote at McAfee in 1998.
I'm not arguing that C++ isn't widely used. I'm taking exception to the "us and them" sentiment I picked up off your comment, that the world is divided between those who appreciate C++ and those who can't hack it outside of Python and Perl. There are plenty of systems programmers who hate C++.
Speaking as someone who's spent the last 6 years maintaining large C++ applications, I'd like to think that any C++ bashing I indulged in was at least informed C++ bashing... ;)
Similar story (10 years, many gripes). But I think I'd still be in grad school if I had to rely on the blazing execution speed of Python and Perl to do all of my work. I guess I have a soft spot for the language....
Before you chime in with some snarky comment about some superficial aspect of the language (like, say, the name), please try to realize that C++ is still one of the most widely-used languages in the world -- for a reason. And if you find yourself about to post something of the form "why would they add [feature X]...python/ruby/haskell/blub has had that for years", please stop and take a deep breath. Realize that it takes a long time to add features to a language that has to be standardized by committee and deployed to as many platforms as C++ has today.
You may like ruby/python/blub better, but that's a bit like saying "I like my swiss army knife better than my chainsaw". Your swiss army knife will do fine in a lot of different situations, but you're not going to cut down many trees with it. Nor would you try to open a package with a chainsaw.