So interesting, to me a language being opinionated is the main reason to put it on the do-not-use bin. I strongly believe that the best way to develop is through embedded domain-specific languages adapted to individual problems, and opinionated languages are always way too limiting regarding that.

Your statement contradicts itself - you're against optionanted languages, but insert an opinionated language(DSL) into an unopinionated language.

No contradiction.

It is not the job of a general-purpose language to insert its own opinions. That is the system designer's job. Fighting with the language's opinions is a recipe for failure.

When it's an embedded dsl you always have the escape hatch of the entire host language - and it is not shocking to use it: being in an eDSL does not mean that you have to agree to it religiously, it's always a case-by-case engineering tradeoff.

Whereas when in an opinionated language and you cannot do what you want... Ugly hacks such as people using bash scripts, mustache templates, etc ... to preprocess their code to get what they want quickly happen.

C++ is opinionated, just not in the same way as other programming languages. That is its strength.

(Perhaps the clearest C++ opinion is "zero cost abstractions")

There's no such thing as an "unopinionated" kitchen sink language. Language features have all sorts of unforeseen interactions that must be handled somehow, and good high-level design is needed to ensure that the interactions are sensible.

C++ is definitely unopinionated. Its evolution follows the path dictated by necessity, not opinion.

The "necessity" is defined by the three foundational opinions of c++ :

- zero cost abstraction

- system language

- compatibility with C toolchain

We're in the context of such unforeseen interaction.(Ironic, isn't it)