I find languages that support just one programming paradigm constraining
When done well, software is invisible.
Most of the programmers in ten years will be us, and we won't get much smarter.
The standard library saves programmers from having to reinvent the wheel.
I like doing research that has an impact. If I went to a company to make what they call 'real money,' I'd be just trying to make a system work as fast as possible to meet the product and serice deadlines.
Tom [Cargil]s suggestion with a further idea: Propsers of new [C++] features should be required to donate a kidney. That would - Jim [Waldo] pointed out - make people think hard before proposing, and even people without any sense would propose at most two extensions.