That is an interesting take, I don’t really disagree (regarding the high-level semantics/lowest overhead). I do question the use of ‘highest’ as the qualifier for the semantic level, but certainly would support a claim that the goal was some indeterminate high with regards to the semantic level. Even at the inception of C++ as something different than C with classes, there were at least a few languages with a higher semantic level than where C++ is today. Although I do not think there was any then current strategy for making those languages as low overhead as C in practice. So as time has progressed and the cruft and complexity have built up I think they have now decided to find the highest level they can reach, while maintaining backwards compatibility and the low overhead requirements.

I am inclined to agree that a green field language is probably a better bet for achieving the goal, but I am not sold on any of the current contenders. So I still plod along doing my performance sensitive development in stripped down C++ and plug away at my pet language project.

> It took me a while to understand what C++ was: a quest for the highest level semantics possible with the lowest performance overhead.

I find it interesting that it took you a "while" even though Stroustrup was already defining like that before C++98: https://books.google.fr/books?id=hS9mDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT151&lpg=P...