While Oberon is a bit verbose, the C/C++ declaration syntax is a train wreck. Consider the declaration of signal(), which does not have a very complicated type:

    (*signal(int sigcatch, void (*func)(int sigraised)))(int);

I can't think of any C-derived language (other than C++) that uses C-style declarations.

I basically just typedef away the ugly syntax. It basically works. Though I wish you could use typedefs in prototypes, like

    typedef int signal_func(int sigcatch, raised_func f);

    foo.h:
    signal_func* p_handler;


    foo.cc:
    signal_func my_handler {
      ...
    }

This would avoid a lot of repetition and is easier to read IMO.

Yes, C works if you know how to avoid the gotchas. It'd be nicer if the gotchas weren't there. It's not as if they add value to the language. (C++ OTOH seems to have too many gotchas to learn them all...)

Seems to? How can you even know how to comment on the gotchas if you don't know them?

The statement is about the viability of learning all gotchas of C++, and to make a credible point on this you just need to know there exists a large number of them.

(Indeed knowing all, or merely many, of the gotchas would speak against the conjecture.)

Every language has gotchas...

Scott Meyers seems to have made a career out of documenting them in his books.

That's for function pointers though, which is a bit different...