C++ is only as horrible as you want it to be. I am currently using C++ internally to write a library and have chosen very carefully which subset to use. It's

C++ is only as horrible as you want it to be. I am currently using C++ internally to write a library and have chosen very carefully which subset to use. It's fun. - external API is C only - no exceptions - some macro magic to allow customization of allocators - a proxy allocator for the STL containers to use my custom allocators. - only trivial constructors It's a pleasure to work with. True, the allocators in C++ suck, but things could be worse and I can still use most of the STL without much troubles.