The examples are dubious and won't ever make their way to production code.
It also seems that the author just discovered that they are low-level languages. I've never found any serious book on the subject claiming the opposite.
Even I agree with the part in he complains about the size and complexity of the c++ standard.
And the third footnote is simply true.
My complaints are more oriented to C++ than C, often I feel that something went wrong, and we fail to try to reduce the complexity.
When I remember the following quote "A programming language is low level when its programs require attention to the irrelevant." Alan J. Pelis. I always remember modern C++ and I realized how regardless of an apparently simpler syntax, we start to think about l-value, r-value discard, contexpr, we start paying attention to details no related to our original problem.
That's why I feel you are right C++ is a low-level language, but sometimes I feel the modern C++ is not a higher level, but even a lower level.
Sometimes I ask myself if despite the lack of standard library and high-level structures if working with c and Glibc it's higher or lower level, my experience tells me that sometimes I can concentrate better on my problem I try to solve, instead of struggle with the compiler.
