That
\nsupposition is confirmed by a question on what type of projects respondents
\nwork on, with more than 26 percent saying they work on developer tools such as compilers and code editors \u2013\u00a0higher than one would expect. 60.5 percent of respondents say they have more than 10 years’ experience developing with C++, and 32.7 percent more than 20 years,
\nso this is a mature crowd.<\/p>\n
A key point of interest is what has
\nchanged since last year, with AI the most notable example. 39.8 percent of respondents use AI for writing code frequently, versus 30.9 percent last year. There is also
\nmore use of AI for other tasks such as writing tests (up from 20 to 33 percent)
\nand for debugging (up from 11.5 to 23.6 percent).<\/p>\n
That said, there is also notable resistance to AI. 42
\npercent (down from 52.7 percent last year) rarely or never use AI for coding or other tasks. Issues with AI (among
\nboth adopters and non-adopters) include incorrect output, lack of trust in the
\noutput, data privacy concerns, and the cost of AI tools. <\/p>\n
Several of the survey questions invite write-in responses,
\nwhich to our annoyance are not published but sent only to members of the
\nstandards committee and product vendors. An AI-generated summary is published
\ninstead.<\/p>\n
![\"AI](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/5234733.webp.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
\n AI issues faced by C++ developers, according to an official survey
\n ISO C++ developer survey 2026\n <\/p>\n
Issues with AI, according to this summary, include struggles
\nwith large projects and complex build systems. Some write-ins had stronger
\nlanguage, including claims that AI is “burning the planet.”<\/p>\n
When asked what developers would like to change about C++, the
\nthemes, again according to a summary, are similar to those mentioned last year,
\nincluding the lack of a standard package manager; the complexity of managing
\nheaders, includes, and macros; long build times; bugs from undefined behavior
\nand implicit conversions; lack of memory safety; obscure error messages from tools; and gaps in the standard library forcing use of third-party libraries.<\/p>\n
Respondents valued the ISO\/WG21 C++ standards committee as essential and transparent, but it also came under fire for slow progress and over-complex language
\ndesign \u2013 perhaps with some contradiction since respondents want it both to do more and to do less.<\/p>\n
C++ remains among the most popular programming languages. A
\nrecent language survey<\/a> from RedMonk ranks it in seventh place, or sixth if you do not count CSS
\n(Cascading Style Sheets), behind JavaScript, Python, Java, C#, and TypeScript.
\nRust, often put forward as a safer alternative, lies in 20th place. Last
\nyear, SlashData claimed that C++ has “grown from 9.4 million developers in
\n2022 to 16.3 million in 2025,” a figure quoted by former standards committee
\nchair Herb Sutter, who said<\/a>\u00a0that C++, C, and Rust are growing because of their hardware efficiency, “performance
\nper watt.”<\/p>\n