Linus Torvalds calling C++ users "substandard programmers" and saying the language makes it too easy to write garbage code is the kind of nuclear take that only someone who literally built the Linux kernel can get away with. The man runs on pure technical conviction and zero diplomatic filter. He's not wrong though—C++ gives you enough rope to hang yourself, your team, and possibly the entire codebase. Meanwhile C keeps you humble by making you manually manage every byte like it's 1972. The funniest part? This quote is probably from some mailing list flame war that's now immortalized as programming folklore.

The traditional #ifndef / #define / #endif include guard pattern is basically the Roman testudo formation of C/C++ programming—a bunch of verbose lines working together to protect your header file from being included multiple times. It gets the job done, but requires three whole lines of boilerplate and a carefully crafted unique macro name that you hope nobody else in your codebase accidentally reused. Then comes #pragma once —the modern military tank that just rolls in and does the exact same thing with literally two words. No macro naming conventions to memorize, no closing #endif to forget, no risk of copy-pasting the wrong guard name. Just pure, elegant simplicity. The only reason people still use the traditional guards is for that sweet, sweet portability to compilers from 1987 that nobody actually uses anymore. Meanwhile, #pragma once has been supported by every major compiler for decades and is sitting there like "I could do this all day."