> Maybe an experienced C++ coder can destroy my preconceptions :) - Generally C++ uses the OS-level package manager, like rpm or dpkg. It's not cross-platform

> Maybe an experienced C++ coder can destroy my preconceptions :) - Generally C++ uses the OS-level package manager, like rpm or dpkg. It's not cross-platform and it doesn't have a nice interface in the source code (#include is... unfortunate), but there is a nice solution here if your organization has the discipline and tooling expertise to make it work. - Template metaprogramming isn't bad to use at all. Everyone uses it every time they construct a vector<>. It takes a lot of skill to write, though, and unfortunately even users of TMP can end up with nasty and bloated compiler errors. Hopefully this will be addressed by "concepts" in forthcoming versions of C++, but it might be a while before that filters down to stable C++ compilers and libraries. - The real issue that should scare you is something called "undefined behavior". It's very easy to do subtle things that cause you programs to break in weird and hard to debug ways. Nasty side effects that could theoretically include any side effect. Like saving garbage to your production database. By doing something as innocuous as overrunning an array. https://kukuruku.co/post/undefined-behavior-and-fermats-last-theorem/ https://kukuruku.co/post/undefined-behavior-and-fermats-last... https://stackoverflow.com/questions/367633/what-are-all-the-common-undefined-behaviours-that-a-c-programmer-should-know-a https://stackoverflow.com/questions/367633/what-are-all-the-... There are tricks and tools to avoid undefined behavior, but I find that most C++ engineering orgs don't prioritize the tooling (linters, UB sanitizers, etc.) needed to let engineers do this productively. Consequently, a lot of writing good C++ involves detailed coding standards and/or very detail-oriented gurus poring over code reviews.