[erik_seaberg]

The first edition of Stroustrup is the only version without templates (and exceptions). I remember awful macro workarounds for C++ compilers with broken template support, so I think everyone knew that some kind of generics were obviously needed. Ada got this and a few other things right, but it was painfully verbose and the first compilers were so expensive that few seriously evaluated it.

[erik_seaberg]

If I had to pick a language that got nearly everything right and shouldn't have failed, it'd be Eiffel. But it was also priced more like a truck than a tool until too late (at a time when programmers didn't generally cost six figures!)