I really dislike C++ but more to the point I really dislike other people's C++.
This is triple compounded when you only have to do C++ occasionally. I've never even got close to the point of looking at something like const *const char & and reading it like it was something normal like others seem to do.
I really dislike C++ but more to the point I really dislike other people's C++.
That's right on the money. I can find a subset of C++ that I like and that I could program with, but that assumes that I'm not collaborating with someone and that I don't have to use C++ libraries (It's not just the code, it's the APIs, too). The latter is almost worse. I could imagine a company that has some rather strict standards, where the C++ development environment doesn't suck completely. Google's style guide seems to indicate that they might be one of those companies [1]. Much more likely you'd have to work with something like MFC, VLC or the complete boost hodgepodge.
And Zed is right when he's talking about the template meta-programming fad. I haven't seen any project where the pros outweighed the cons. And yes, I've read Alexandrescu.
People often say that you need all those features to build large applications. Which reminds me a lot of the "Doctor, it hurts when I do like this!" joke…
There are some very good template-based libraries. I think STL is mostly ok, but also libraries like Eigen are great, and avoid a lot of code duplication through templates.
Templates as they were used/implemented in earlier days where quite okay, apart from having to use other people's libraries, I preferred to solve problems using generic programming than just building class hierarchies (which now nicely translates to functional programming).
Apart from very crappy compiler support (looking at you, Microsoft) I really liked the STL. It's simple enough (maybe a bit too simplistic).
Template meta-programming is a whole 'nother deal. It's like the rabid daughter of an unhappy marriage between Lisp's macros and Perl. From some angles, she looks rather enticing. Then she bites down on your crotch.
This is triple compounded when you only have to do C++ occasionally. I've never even got close to the point of looking at something like const *const char & and reading it like it was something normal like others seem to do.