[saurik]

(In a way this is off-topic, but I feel the need to point out that the throws() specifiers in C++ are not like Java's: they are more like a runtime assertion that "if this function throws something not in this set of types, terminate my program"; the result is a situation where you gain nothing at compile time, force an on-some-architectures-painfully-slow exception check on the function, and in the end find yourself with a very similar result to having just not caught the exception at all. This particular C++ feature was sufficiently useless as to be downright harmful. The Java feature, by comparison, has some defensible merit ;P.)

To say something more on-topic: as someone who has been programming in C++ for 15 years, I agree with your comments regarding how C++'a community typically admits the things it sucks at, and is rather pragmatic about the whole thing. (You kind of have to be with a kitchen-sink language like C++ ;P.)