Re:yes, they do! (Score 1)

Sorry, but you will be proven wrong. Well - actually - that already happened. :-) C++ (past), Java (present) and Python (future) were, are and will be successful for good reasons. And those reasons are the exact same you bash them for - the language comes (increasingly) with proper plumbing. I learned OOP concepts from reading that very same Smalltalk/80 book. Still have it. It's great. But Smalltalk was simply too far ahead of it's time and has since been . And Java and Python beat the crap out of C and even C++ for the same reason you don't like them: They come with std libraries that make us more productive (and C++ should have had that. If C++ had a better and more complete std library there might never have been a Java). I even like C still - and yes for the same reasons you cite. But a language by itself is close to worthless if you have to write the same silly old stuff again and again - or get used to the umpteenth new variation that the next shop uses for a container lib or GUI framework. Java and Python let you learn a set of std libs once and then let's you concentrate on the problem to be solved - instead of spending a large portion of your time on protocols, gui and other infrastructure. BTW - I don't see any "cacophony of discord" in C++. Great language. Too bad it came without proper frameworks when it needed them. And while K&R C might need a couple pages less to describe than ANSI C - please, please don't make me go back to a C compiler that doesn't understand ANSI C. That's just cruel.