I joined BTL in 1977 and worked there until 1991. I learned Unix there and first heard about C++ when it was called "C with Classes". In the 1980's I contributed to and supervised projects that used both C and C++.
What Bjarne Stroustrup doesn't recognize but I hear so very clearly in his written comments is an old "Center 127" mantra. (For those who don't know, Center 127 was the internal organization that developed Unix; it's where all the famous names worked. I didn't work in 127 but in telephony development departments.) Key to this was that BTL only hired the "best" developers and were not going to limit them by assuming that researchers knew best. This was widely recognized strategy of mutual respect. So it was a good idea: let the practitioners see how "it" evolves. It was not just the language or the surrounding technology; it was everything because BTL was responsible for all of it, literally (at least until the monopoly dissolved.)
We've come a long way since then. Unix evolved, the monopoly that produced it evolved into a faint shadow of itself; but software development and the *economic* problems endemic to it have mutated and still remain.
In short, don't let the mantra of the past cloud thinking in the present. Beware of the faulty assumptions underlying C++; those assumptions start with a flawed view of what is the very definition of a developer community. C++ is limited in becoming what it needs to be because it is a product of a past it can't shake off.
C for yourself.
