[actionfromafar]

Pondering - is there a language similar to C++ (whatever that means, it's huge, but I guess a sprinkle of don't pay for what you don't use and being compiled) which has no raw pointers and such (sacrificing C compatibility) but which is otherwise pretty similar to C++?

[mort96]

Rust is the only one I really know of. It's many things to many people, but to me as a C++ developer, it's a C++ with a better template model, better object lifetime semantics (destructive moves <3) and without all the cruft stemming from C compat and from the 40 years of evolution.

The biggest essential differences between Rust and C++ are probably the borrow checker (sometimes nice, sometimes just annoying, IMO) and the lack of class inheritance hierarchies. But both are RAII languages which compile to native code with a minimal runtime, both have a heavy emphasis on generic programming through templates, both have a "C-style syntax" with braces which makes Rust feel relatively familiar despite its ML influence.