[gpderetta]

This risks becoming a no true Scotsman, but it is indeed true that there is really no common idiomatic C++. Even the same code base can use vastly different styles in different areas.

Even regarding exceptions, I would not touch them anywhere close to the critical path, but, for example, during application setup I have no problem with them. And yet I know of people writing very high performance applications that are happy to throw on the critical path as long as it is a rare occurence.