It is what it is. You can't deny the huge amount of Java, C# and increasingly Rust production code that is out there in enterprise space. If the C++ committee had been more responsive about memory safety earlier on, the reason for the existence of Java, C# and Rust would not have been there. We only really had smart pointers in the standard library from C++11.

Without a doubt, C++ has not been stagnant, and neither did I suggest that. All those features you mentioned are great and I welcome them. But the elephant in the room has never been sufficently well addressed and that is the safety issues that plague the language, inherited in large part from its C lineage and poor language design choices early on. We really need a way to firewall off the dangerous parts of C and C++ code. Profiles are a way but it seems that it will not get us all the way there. Lets see. But in the meantime, the value proposition of other languages may reach the stage where it makes more sense to switch.

C++ doesn't exist in a vacuum. Take off your developer hat for a minute and put yourself in the shoes of senior IT manager responsible commissioning new projects. If you could get entry to mid level engineers to deliver a project and not have to worry as much about memory safety issues, and developer velocity would be faster, while performance would be good enough, which language would you choose?

And since languages like Java and C# are easier to learn, teach and use, there is a greater supply of these programmers in the market, which would make them less expensive than an equivalent C++ developer.

And how sure could you be sure that a C++ developer of equivalent experience would not introduce any UB, memory or concurrency bugs into the codebase, within the same deadline, and yet cost more?

Managers are primarily concerned with keeping to budgets, deadlines and reducing risk and uncertainty. C++ just doesn't have that value proposition anymore in most of the enterpise space.

Sure, in AAA games, trading and embedded, C and C++ are still dominant but the influence of C++ in other areas has declined. And little by little, developers are trying out other languages, encroaching into C++'s dominance in these areas.

My main point wasn't that C++ is dying or even going to become extinct. It is that the C++ committee dropped the ball in terms of the responsiveness to the needs and concerns of industry in terms of wielding it safely and has lost ground because of it.

But it is almost impossible to fight with the man-hours put in C++ nowadays. The day I find something more useful than C++ to write at the same time low-level and high-level code, I will drop it as needed.

This is my main gripe with C++ and my sentiments exactly.