C++ creator rebuts White House warning, but there’s no smoke without fire :)

In a March 15 response to an inquiry from InfoWorld, Stroustrup pointed out strengths of C++. “I find it surprising that the writers of those government documents seem oblivious of the strengths of contemporary C++ and the efforts to provide strong safety guarantees,” Stroustrup said. 

And Stroustrup cited a fact about the origin of the issue :

There are two problems related to safety. Of the billions of lines of C++, few completely follow modern guidelines, and peoples’ notions of which aspects of safety are important differ.

This highlights a significant problem with C++. When any programming language permits the execution of potentially harmful actions, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that a considerable portion of developers may misuse it.

And when confronted about writing bad code, developers may offer various arguments to justify their actions, though these are often excuses rather than valid reasons:

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What attempts have been made to bring memory safety to C++?

C++ is a powerful and widely used programming language known for its flexibility and performance. However, one of its historical drawbacks has been the lack of built-in memory safety features, which can lead to various types of memory-related bugs such as buffer overflows, dangling pointers, and memory leaks.

This is a known issue that has persisted for decades, and numerous attempts have been made to find a solution. Unfortunately, none have succeeded.

What has been done in the past to enhance memory safety within the language?

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