EmptyCrate Software. Travel. Stuff.

I was recently at a talk where the speaker was discussing the history of C++. He argued that one problem with C++ was that its design requirements included backward compatibility with C code, and one fallout of this was the requirement to support all previous types of error handling as well as adding exceptions. That is, C++ supports:

1. Returning of error codes.
2. Error handling functions.
3. Exception handling.

It is true that C++ supports all 3 of these mechanisms, as well as some other cruft left behind from C that unnecessarily encumbers the language. The speaker's point on this one particular case, however, is lost to the fact that every language supports the first two.