[caskstrength]

> If it weren't for the behemoth of legacy code we'd really have this problem more-or-less licked. Unfortunately, that behemoth is still rampaging across the landscape.

It is not only or even mostly legacy. I'm a systems programmer (in classical sense, not "but my web service is soooo highly loaded and scalable that I will call it systems programming!") and from what I see on the job people start new projects in C and C++ all the time.

[eternityforest]

Why do they choose C/C++? Is it just what they and their colleagues already know and nobody wants to be the one to push for change? Easier integration with other C/C++ stuff?

[caskstrength]

From my experience reasons differ for C and C++ programmers.

C programmers are often more experienced people who are used to "simple" language that gets out of the way. They don't want to invest time into learning tricky language like Rust with all the intricacies of its type system, borrow checker, etc. Something simpler like Zig might work for them, but it is not on the table at the moment.

C++ programmers tend to be people who spent hundreds if not thousands of hours learning its ugly corner cases, reading Meyers and Alexandrescu books, that kind of thing. Sunken cost is immense, they whole careers are built on being "C++ experts" and they dread to abandon it and have to learn another very complex language from scratch.

And managers often don't see value in investing time into switching projects to new language. From their PoV it is more like programmers just want to play with a new toy instead of doing "real work".