I agree with you, GP is wrong about the "generally". We did use the isValid variant (and the odd factory once in a blue moon) at $former_job, no exceptions but a lot of other very nice things about C++ (as they became available).

But the article is a decade old, the project started 2007. So there is a good chance the project couldn't even use c++11 features. I still recall using initializer lists on my Linux machine only to have the nightly Windows builds fail (we were stuck on an old msvc for a while; the day we upgraded it there was much rejoice).

//Some light editing