I have been a C/C++ programmer for over 10 years now, and coming from the same background as you, QBasic, I know just what you mean. The build and dependency sy

I have been a C/C++ programmer for over 10 years now, and coming from the same background as you, QBasic, I know just what you mean. The build and dependency systems for C/C++ are atrocious and not made for humans. The syntax is from a time when you didn't want your code to use up all your storage, and its been evolving slowly since. Unfortunately, nothing can fix the worst parts of either language short of starting over, and at this point, since we all know them well enough not to care, we are just stuck with them. Going to CppCon and watching the YT videos, all I see is an ever-increasing burden on the programmer to know obscure facts and the current trends to correctly write "modern" C++. I will stop myself before getting to the template meta-programming language hidden away, that no one tells you about before its too late. :) At the very least C has a consistent calling convention per architecture. C really just needs a better standard library, from scratch, and it could be the modern BASIC with worse syntax. Might as well mention, I have used FreeBASIC before and its quite good and very mature. It generates C/C++ code (I don't remember the details) and compiles using GCC! If the compiler can generate standard C/C++ code, there is good reason to believe the project could be maintained forever and compete with other languages.