But isn't that because C++ itself evolved from C? The original "C With Classes" wasn't much more than a convenient syntactic sugar for using structs and function pointers as a poor man's object system, something that was and is common in large, abstract C programs (e.g. Linux's VFS layer, Gtk+).
I think you may be confusing is with ought here. Everybody sane knows C++ has flaws; I think Meyers even feels this way in his presentation. C++ is popular because it evolved and thus contains a lot of compromises. To draw an analogy, the Mormon Church is immensely popular in the US for similar reason--they basically said, "Hey the New and Old Testaments you spent your formative years learning are all good, but we've got some swell new stuff here too!" I'm sure Zen Buddhism is more theologically pure, but people like what's familiar to them.
Programming languages are a network effect problem first and foremost. Just like it's hard to unseat Craigslist despite its crappy UI, it's difficult to get users for a new language that may be only marginally better in terms of features, productivity, safety or convenience. Even if it's a significant improvement existing code bases, library availability, programmer availability with domain knowledge and so on matter much more for serious projects. There's a reason why Facebook took the time to write a PHP VM instead of rewriting their code.
I think you may be confusing is with ought here. Everybody sane knows C++ has flaws; I think Meyers even feels this way in his presentation. C++ is popular because it evolved and thus contains a lot of compromises. To draw an analogy, the Mormon Church is immensely popular in the US for similar reason--they basically said, "Hey the New and Old Testaments you spent your formative years learning are all good, but we've got some swell new stuff here too!" I'm sure Zen Buddhism is more theologically pure, but people like what's familiar to them.
Programming languages are a network effect problem first and foremost. Just like it's hard to unseat Craigslist despite its crappy UI, it's difficult to get users for a new language that may be only marginally better in terms of features, productivity, safety or convenience. Even if it's a significant improvement existing code bases, library availability, programmer availability with domain knowledge and so on matter much more for serious projects. There's a reason why Facebook took the time to write a PHP VM instead of rewriting their code.