* Form follows function.
* Minimalism principle, there's only one best way. (vs postmodern, there are many)
* Stanford, not New Jersey.
C++ is clearly a postmodern language, because instead of reducing competing features, it rather adds more and more variants of almost the same thing. Modernism means to reduce this syntax and library bloat.
I think you're both right. There are people that will interpret modern as temporal versus modern as in design.
I was referring to the temporal interpretation, and thinking in terms that either "modern cpp" becomes fixed in time to mean '>= c++11', or evolves to mean '>= c++23' and beyond.
In the former case, you'll have people unhappy because cpp style will surely continue to change, and people will complain that 'modern cpp' is the bad way. In the latter case, you'll have people complaining that "good style" is a shifting target, and feeling like they'll be accosted by trend setters no matter how they write their code.