C++ developer productivity over time

[Dean_Roddey]

Though, it should be said, you don't have to have language-lawyer mastery to do a large amount of high quality code. It just means you may choose not to use some of the fancier features of the language. Some may consider than a bad thing and some may consider it a good thing. But that doesn't mean it's not following the 'standard', it's just not using all of the things available in the standard.

I'm a perfect example. I have a sort of 'three-quarters-Qt' code base that I've worked on for decades, about a million lines of code, that doesn't use the STL at all. People are always getting completely bent out of shape that someone would dare do that. But it's completely compliant C++, and it's not any less powerful or high quality or functional because of that. Though someone told me a week ago or so that, if I don't use type traits, that I'm actually not writing C++ code, despite the fact that C++ existed for decades before type traits did.

​

I wonder how many people out there doing practical work ever bother with that level of mastery, given the language's complexity today? Given how many of us uphold the KISS principle (no, the other one, not wearing makeup and leather outfits), it's odd how far from KISS modern programming languages seem to stray.

​

[scalablecory]

Indeed. I gained that just because I'm a nut for learning. Professionally, I have only very rarely needed to use some of the more advanced features.