I’m very disconnected from the C/++ world, so when I was reading about profiles in another comment here (the one about the committee essentially saying “Safe C++ is off the table”), profiles sounded like something that was in an early phase of planning and implementation. Then the linked Reddit thread mentioned them being a thing in 2015 and I thought “oof they’ve been on profiles for a minute and it’s this underdeveloped?” and now your comment - yikes!

There was a time when I was learning programming where my options were what the library offered: books on C/++, Java, obscure X extensions, Assembly, and BASIC. I quickly found that C just didn’t “click” for me and the JRE/JDK was a real pain to work with on a slow internet connection and no guidance.

The only thing that’s made me want to go back to trying systems programming is the existence of Rust - I like the concept of the borrow checker and the added safety in general, and the community I’ve seen online seems a lot more inviting and friendly than I ever felt trying to find C++ resources.

All that said, the conversation around core safety in C++ and the community’s reaction to “workarounds” (like offloading functionality to Rust) makes me want to just never step back in to that particular world. There’s no appeal I can see about loading a footgun and putting on a blindfold unless you need to work in that world.