Right, but we're not discussing C++ are we? We're discussing RAII. C++'s mistakes are C++'s mistakes, adding RAII to a language doesn't imply you have to replicate C++'s mistakes, nor are C++'s mistakes issues with the concept of RAII, or destructors.
From type theory point of view, ideally RAII aware types should only compose with outher RAII types without escape hatches.
Rust and Ada do it better in this regard.
Yes, new is itself too low-level, so std::make_unique("pjmlp"s) is the modern idiom; and std::string is limited (expect unicode-aware strings in '23). But a heap-allocated string object is a thing equally easy and useful to express in Rust. (Dunno about Ada: does it have any analog of destructors, yet?)
You have to remember to `free` the string explicitely.
> Yes, new is itself too low-level, so std::make_unique("pjmlp"s) is the modern idiom
Is it? Isn't that going to create an `unique_ptr<char*>`?
> You have to remember to `free` the string explicitly
That is not a type problem. It is far from clear what pjmlp means here. unique_ptr should have been invented in 1985? Time machines have their own problems.
I have seen plenty of new std::string("some") and other similar crimes in offshored code, or code without ownership that gets updated by whatever external contractor got brought in to implement 5 Jira tickets that finally got some budget assigned to them.
To be fair this isn't exclusive of C++, I have seen similar bad practices in other languages, C++ just gives more opportunities for them.