My strong anti-C++ bent comes from having used in in demanding production situations for 12 years. It is a beast. When Scott Meyers of http://www.amazon.com/Effective-Specific-Addison-Wesley-Prof... fame reads a book on C++ template programming and is surprised, no, astonished! at some of the things done there, and attempts to write auto_ptr and fails at least twice.

It takes way to long to learn (probably 2 years for a developer working with it 8 hours a day), and the grown ups don't like it either: http://www.amazon.com/Coders-Work-Reflections-Craft-Programm...

This isn't even an ugly chick.