[JdeBP]

I thought of writing an operating system in C++ in the 1990s. I didn't achieve it until after the turn of the century. But I definitely thought of it.

The "everyone" who knew these things about C++ was a small set of vocal people largely from the Unix and C worlds. Other people who were at the time developing Windows NT device drivers in C++, to pick one example, knew that a lot of the received, and loudly recirculated, wisdom about systems programming and C++ was just bunkum.

[pjmlp]

Me too, I never liked C.

What I was trying to convey with that comment was that C++ was looked down for systems programming, it required Symbian, BeOS, OS X IO Kit to change that mentality.

Even Windows that you mention, which always was a more welcoming place for C++ tooling, Microsoft only started to officially support it with Visual C++ 2012 when the /kernel flag was introduced.

So even that microkernel could have been eventually written in System C#, if there was enough management support to keep developing Midori and improving the language to the point C++ wouldn't be needed.

Instead the project was canceled and since in IT, seeing is believing, there will be idea for many, that there wasn't any other way to accomplish it.

I love the way Alan Kay and others like him think, it is not what the technology give us today, but what it can give us tomorrow in a few years time.