I like the point made by some other comment in this thread: The "modern C++" argument is tiring. It only truly works if C++ has a hard mode-switch between mode

I like the point made by some other comment in this thread: The "modern C++" argument is tiring. It only truly works if C++ has a hard mode-switch between modern and legacy C++, which it doesn't have. Things like smart pointers reduce memory bugs, true, but Absolutely Nothing in modern C++ disallow you to mix in raw pointers too. At best you have conventions requiring people to utilize the modern features, but that is asking the humans writing the code to be disciplined, and you know very well we are not. Mistakes happen. If modern C++ has a `legacy` block that works in a similar vein as Rust's `unsafe` then perhaps your position would have been much stronger. Alas, it'd be very weak still because modern C++ continues to carry the baggages of legacy C++.