&gt; it sacrifices one of the biggest advantages to writing code in C++: the ability to compile for multiple platforms.<p>Is that really one of the <i>biggest</i> advantages to C++? Both of the other languages that you mention, can target a huge amount of platforms. Java, Scheme. In fact, I think that&#x27;s a feature of very many modern languages, And specifically of C, which may be a much better choice if compatibility is your preference. It seems that the choice to use C++ is not likely motivated primary by platform support for most developers.