[tjoff]

The behavior is predictable to anyone versed in the language. C++ is a complex language to learn so that is inherently harder than most alternatives, but the concepts here are not.

I am first in line to acknowledge the flaws of C++ as well as sheering on more modern approaches. But I do find your criticisms shallow and a quite oddly chosen.

[notacoward]

> The behavior is predictable to anyone versed in the language.

Ahh, there's that "don't care about the blubs" arrogance again. Never mind that your interlocutor is about 99.9% likely to be less of a blub than you are. Whether behavior is predictable given arbitrary amounts of information and effort is not the point. What matters is how much it distracts the programmer from the non-language-specific problem they're really trying to solve, and the answer for C++ remains way too damn much even when the programmer is highly skilled and well versed in the language.

[tjoff]

You know you reek of it yourself.

C++ and even C has tons of subtle edges that are impossible to keep track of. You need to be experienced to have a fighting chance, I'm not defending that. But it is a fact of life and in a large part of that are relics from the past.

You can't just take a concept that is somewhat unique to C++ and proclaim that it is bad just because C++ has a lot of warts. Your criticism doesn't even register on the weirdness scale in my opinion. It works as intended, is easy to reason about and solves practical problems. Object lifetimes is something I almost always miss when I don't use C++. A garbage collector is hell to work with in comparison.

What is unfortunate is that we don't really have any alternatives. Rust shows promise but we've had to suffer through decades to even get to this point, which also implies that we have decades left. And that assumes that rust continues in the pace it has and preferably also that we get more alternatives to chose from.