Like we always have to ask when somebody says what you have, "What's the alternative?" Whatever it is, it'll need to be very portable (well beyond just Linux,

Like we always have to ask when somebody says what you have, "What's the alternative?" Whatever it is, it'll need to be very portable (well beyond just Linux, OS X and Windows), and it'll presumably need a free implementation on each of those platforms, and it'll need to be quite fast, and it'll need to support native compilation, and it'll need to support interoperability with existing code, and it'll need to be "safer" in some way. At this time, there are very, very few languages that meet every one of those criteria sufficiently. We're looking at C, or C++. Maybe Ada. But that's about it. Rust doesn't cut it yet, and probably won't for some time. Other candidates are lacking severely in one or more of those important areas. C++ using modern techniques appears to be the only feasible alternative to C today.