The C++ article did not use any header-only libraries, though, it just used the standard library, unlike the post about Rust. And Rust's behavior on overflow is "safe" for a certain definition of safe–in release builds by default it will wrap, which is often undesirable.
I assumed "enormous attack surface" was referring to real systems, not toy examples. AFAIK, even C++ needs more than the std library to solve business problems in the domains I am familiar with. There are many ways to manage dependencies including vendoring in header-only libraries, where my point about the lack of tooling and clunky UX still stands.
I just want to use tools that help me get stuff done. C++ has had a 30-year head start, why can they not see the overall value-add of a default build and test tool and a format for package declaration and management.
I think most C++ developers do see the value of something like Cargo…but it must also be considered that making it easy to bring in dependencies does not also mean the standard library can be poor and you can farm everything out to third parties.
C++ does not have a standard checked arithmetic operation, so I'll concede with you there. It really should, although most people just use the fairly widespread compiler builtins that behave similarly. (That being said, having it not be the default means that people who really need it won't use it, which is the same situation that Rust is in.)
