C++ is very frightened of breaking existing code, including at the binary level. Some shared library built in 2007 stands a decent chance of running today if it

C++ is very frightened of breaking existing code, including at the binary level. Some shared library built in 2007 stands a decent chance of running today if it avoided the ABI break of ruin and disaster where string and list changed slightly. It's also widely considered a very complicated language and there's some worry it suffers in user acquisition as a result. If you take those two properties together, the game plan of making the language look nicer without changing how it works is about all you've got. It accretes more stuff with a bias towards making some use case look nicer. It leaves margin for faster code below it because slow choices are forever. More syntax over the same operations is a dubious interpretation of making things simpler. Yet it lives on. People start new projects in it. Some people think the economics work out in favour. Oh, and some people did understand it in 2007. Maybe only five but they did exist. Some of those may still be heavily involved enough to understand the current language, but I wouldn't be shocked if they're burned out and gone. We might be down to zero.