Mindshare - Lisp has its zealots. C++ is tolerated rather than adored, because it's more of a Katamari Damacy of stray CS than a language with a coherent focus.
How many other languages have a Turing complete sublanguage built into them just to handle templating?
On the bright side, C++ doesn't have obscure keywords like "cdr" and "car" that refer to specific hardware elements of an obsolete computer built in 1954.
Significant whitespace means that we can't reliably use a traditional whitespace-insensitive diff to to compare changes in Python code that seriously change its meaning, such as change how many statements are in the scope of an if.
This is the funniest and most accurate description of C++ that I have ever heard. +100 for the game reference.
D does. It's just that nobody uses it for that, because CTFE (Compile Time Function Execution) is so much better.
“There are only two kinds of languages: the ones people complain about and the ones nobody uses.” ― Bjarne Stroustrup
A language does not need to be adored, it just need to do the job and have users.
Every language has its quirks, if they are not obvious enough, it just means your language is too young for now.
Languages/Frameworks with their zealots, evangelists and fanatics are generally the ones that will probably disappear in less than 10 years.
"coherent focus" (often mean dictator driven) never survives the test of time.
About mindshare: Lisp has zealots, but they are few, even if they are loud, and they are on HN more than many other places. C++ is perhaps not loved, but in some circles it is very well respected, the way a chef respects a very sharp knife. The value lies precisely in the sharpness.
I'm out of my depth, but I'm pretty sure HM is not Turing complete by design as otherwise it wouldn't be able to guarantee that inference completes. An HM type system is about as powerful you can get without being Turing complete.
There are extensions to the type systems of languages that use HM making them Turing complete, but when using those extensions inference is not guaranteed or doesn't work at all.
For lower-level programming, while my favorite is Rust, if I cannot use Rust for some reason (say the team against it) I'd use C++.
To be sure, what I mean is I would use my favorite subset of C++, and I adore that subset. The parts of C++ outside of my chosen subset are merely tolerated.
