[llbowers]

C++ is, quite rightly, considered an overly-complex and bloated language. A lot of newer features are papering over poor design from the beginnings of the language.

But..

There is something about the use of destructors, RAII, and even smart-pointers that just feels so...elegant? I'm not sure what the word is I'm looking for. I feel like there's a kernel of a beautiful language hiding in c++ and those features are the integral parts of that.

[janselman]

Because C++ has almost all the possible features of the programming languages, so you find a subset to like in it. A language shines when it picks the correct subset of the features, not all.

[unrealhoang]

Rust does a good job capturing that kernel.