[toadpipe]

Expressiveness in a single line of code is such a stupid metric.

magic()

What's that? It's a function call. What does it do? Anything. Everything. Why does it need a complex grammar? It doesn't. Spend your time thinking about the problem, not the language. What a concept!

Do simple things take many lines of code in C? Yes. If you only have a few data structures and algorithms in your mental toolbox, simple things will take many lines of code in C, or C++, or in any language. Why do people advocate baroque languages by claiming that you cannot do simple things simply except with baroque languages, and then blame people for complicating their programs by using that baroqueness?

Yeah, C++ programmers are feature junkies; the language is designed by a feature junkie and promotes language features as the solution to every problem. If you go against that, you are going against the whole culture.

If PL/I was the fatal disease, C++ is the shambling corpse.

[blub]

Wrong: C++ promotes library features before language features. Language features are carefully considered before they are included or dropped.

In fact the entire language is designed with care, which should be obvious to anyone who has read The design & evolution of C++ or has followed C++'s evolution.

[groby_b]

Yes, really careful... "Oh look, another shiny feature. Let's add it!" ;)

But kidding aside - the constraints imposed on C++ during its design (C backwards compatible) combined with a desire to have every feature under the sun available has led to an overly complex beast.

Don't tell me you looked at e.g. C++ lambda functions and thought that was "good design". It gets the job done, but that's the best you can say about it.