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Comment by smallstepforman | Hacker News Reader

Author quoted C/C++, I immediately knew what conclusions I’d find. If on the other hand they had seasoned C++ devs (instead of C/C++), they might have had a different outcome.

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That is the current issue with most C++ codebases nowadays, I only see modern C++ on conference slides, when I look into codebases even from ISO C++ members, it is always C++ full of C idioms no matter what.

I bet most candidates to C++ job offers end up discovering the hardly reality of existing code.

That's a fundamental C++ problem. That and all the other idioms it supports. C++ is really like 10 languages and you always have find a mentor to show you the specific one you're working with in a codebase.

While I agree, note that it isn't exclusive of C++, most languages of similar age present similar issues.

How many styles do we now have on C#11, Java 20, Python 3.11, PHP 8.2,....?

This is why static analysis and linters are so relevant for keeping teams into a specific way of doing things, it is not like we can always justify start from scratch into simpler languages.

Can you give some examples of problematic C idioms in C++?

Manipulating C style strings and arrays, instead of the respective C++ standard library classes, calling malloc()/free() directly all over the place.

What is with the modern C++ community treating "C/C++" as a shibboleth to gatekeep over? I'm a seasoned C++ dev (using it before C++98 was available, kept up with trends) and I've never seen this before until the last year or so. I've never had a problem with it as I see my C++ skills being tranferrable to C.

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