If a language will have N number of features I'd rather have some behind pragmas than not. Let's say by some measure GHC Haskell and C++ have the same number of

If a language will have N number of features I'd rather have some behind pragmas than not. Let's say by some measure GHC Haskell and C++ have the same number of features. C++ will always be N factorial, unless I read the entire source code to see that certain features are not being used. In Haskell I can look at the top line and easily see that many features are not being used. An interesting alternative (one which a C++ compoler could employ) is to allow pragmatic that disable features. E.g. I could quickly see that a C++ file is not using macros. This is the wrong default though. Features should be opt-in rather than opt-out to encourage a minimal use of features.