[w3pm]

For a while I thought C + templates would be a great idea as well. In theory templates are a much more powerful and expressive way of generating code than macros/xmacros.

However after playing around with the idea in a few C++ modules I was writing I came to the conclusion that it's just not worth it. Part of what makes C so enjoyable to write is its relatively "weak" typing and the flexibility that comes with that, primarily freely casting between pointer types including void*'s where necessary. Templates fight against that at every opportunity and I found myself spending more time trying to figure out how to wrangle my code into the template type system than actually making progress on the problem at hand. Newer additions like C++11 constexprs take that type-system frustration to an entirely new level.