@cousin_it: I have exactly the same feeling about C++ and Haskell. Another feature of this kind is inability to do virtual calls from constructors / destructors. Sure, the explanation makes perfect sense and leaves you with a feeling that C++ got it right and the rest of the world got it wrong. C++ protects you from accessing not-fully initialized object, awesome isn't it? Unfortunately it gets in the way when using factory methods (which are perfrctly ok to be called from the constructor in other languages) and is a source of subtle bugs.