Hacker News Reader

Right. To be clear, the purpose of the article is not 'zounds, C and C++ have footguns!' but 'C and C++ have footguns – yeah, this is not exactly breaking news – but here is a hopefully helpful summary of where they are, why they exist, and what you can do to avoid them'.

If you are already satisfied you know how to avoid them, and you don't need any more help with that, then you are not the target audience, and should by all means ignore the article.

View on HN

But tyfighter has some reason. People take such articles, and use them to beat up anyone writing C++, arguing that they are stupid to use such an undependable tool.

So, yes, people who know what they're doing can ignore such articles, as a first-order effect. But there are second-order effects from such articles, and while they don't change anything, they are rather unpleasant. Hence tyfighter's anger - he gets tired of being on the receiving end of the fallout from such articles.

I do actually sympathize with that! I tried to keep a level tone, and maximize the ratio of useful information to flame-war ammunition, but that ratio unfortunately has an upper bound well short of infinity.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com