I've seen a lot of C++, and there's no consensus on what "boring conventions" are. Some places ban templates, some ban RAII. Some ban operator overloading. Som

I've seen a lot of C++, and there's no consensus on what "boring conventions" are. Some places ban templates, some ban RAII. Some ban operator overloading. Some ban lambdas or C++11 features. Some ban macros. There's a lot of variety, and just because you use something like this in your library or project doesn't mean you can't come out and play. C++ is the most "be yourself" language I've encountered. There is no idiomatic code. Now, I get where you are coming from, and I'd love C++ a lot more if there was less feature abuse, but I've accepted that the ship has sailed.