> I just don't think there's a viable alternative Fyi, when safety is important and C++ is the only viable alternative, there's SaferCPlusPlus[1]. And wrt new

> I just don't think there's a viable alternative Fyi, when safety is important and C++ is the only viable alternative, there's SaferCPlusPlus[1]. And wrt new C++17 features, I'll just point out that the SaferCPlusPlus library provides a version of std::any (and std::variant) geared specifically for pointer/iterators. That is, you can, for example, dereference the contained pointer/iterator without needing to know its actual type. And for those that need it, it also provides the "recursive_shared_timed_mutex" that's notably missing from the standard library. [1] shameless plug: https://github.com/duneroadrunner/SaferCPlusPlus https://github.com/duneroadrunner/SaferCPlusPlus