When we were taught an OO course, we had smalltalk first, and then we moved to C++. Professor enumerating all rules, ifs and buts was like an operator of a germ

When we were taught an OO course, we had smalltalk first, and then we moved to C++. Professor enumerating all rules, ifs and buts was like an operator of a german machine gun that was mowing down wave after wave of good natured allied programmers. Or so it felt and classmates have conferred on my feelings. C++ has too many rules and exceptions, while giving some sort of control to a genius - in hands of a good natured well meaning coder, it all goes to hell. That is so not in the beginning but in the long run. All misgivings noted, compilers gone to future and back. They help alot. C has few rules, and whats more if you use UNIX / ISO convention there are very few ways you can go wrong. C++ is an ugly duckling of era of 586 type machines, when you have tried to do something in binary , efficiently and with a style and yet still was found wanting. Explicit is always best, because you always refactor. Say what you mean, write what it does. This way its easier to read, and easier to coax it to do something else. In the end good coders achieve things by correcting few things here and there. If you have some sort magic that developer can't trust to be exactly what they expect it to be - they can't code with honestly and without fear. And fear as we know is a mind killer. So it is a catch 22. I am totally 100% with Linus on that one.