[quicknir]

I keep hearing this. How exactly common is it that you can't use C++ for technical, as opposed to human, reasons? gcc is by far the most talked about compiler in this space (at least from what I hear) and obviously it's a C++ compiler as well.

My guess is that in most (not all) cases C++ is usable instead of C, but the culture of such development is to prefer C. It's a real pity, because for someone with a moderate amount of judgement (i.e. not going off the deep end on unnecessarily complicated C++), it only takes a moderate amount of C++ knowledge to be able to write more maintainable and correct code that performs equally well.

[Koshkin]

What happens in reality though is that as soon as developers get access to the stanard library all hell breaks loose. People switch to the Java mode of thinking and start almost mindlessly using vectors, maps, shared pointers, etc. and C-level performance goes out of the window. With their exposure to templates, there goes their sanity and, as a consequence, code maintainability.