Comment by lmariscal
4 days ago
I would argue that C++ expertise doesn't necessarily correlate to the complexity of the software being developed. Although I do try to learn the fancy new features I know many developers who even though they are still only using C++11 features they are creating some very complex and impactful pieces of software.
I definitely think that’s not a coincidence. C++11 is where you get the most useful feature tradeoffs with reasonable costs.
Smart pointers being a great example. Shared ptr has its issues, it isn’t the most performant choice in most cases, but it by far reduces more footguns than it introduces.
Compared to something like std::variant in the C++17 standard that comes with poor enough performance issues that it’s rarely ever a good fit.
C++11 was for me the first version of C++ where the expressiveness justified the extra complexity relative to C. It was when I finally committed to using C++ instead of C for systems code. In the same sense, C++20 is qualitatively better than C++11 in every way and dramatically reduces the complexity of C++11 while adding many features C++11 needed.
I would add C++23, but only due to std being available as modules, and at least on VC++ is kind of ok for side projects.
Just because someone didn't bother to learn anything past C++11 doesn't mean C++11 is some sort of performance sweet spot.