The Spark of the Conversation

On October 16th, 2025, I joined the online pre-conference interview for Meeting C++ 2025, featuring Klaus Iglberger, author of C++ Software Design, and hosted by Jens Weller, the chief organizer of Meeting C++.

During the session, Klaus voiced his frustration with the ongoing wave of C++ bashing and the misinformation that continues to surround the language. He argued that the so-called “safety problem” critics point to is less about the language itself and more about how it’s used—and I couldn’t agree more.

Where It All Began

Yep, that was me in that picture, sitting in a seminar room in Florence, Italy, surrounded by fellow attendees at DjangoCon Europe 2017 - long before “vibe coding” was even a thing. My laptop screen glowed with lines of Python code I barely understood. I was debugging my very first Django app with the help of a new friend I’d just met at the conference. He leaned over, offered a few pointers, and before I knew it, the app was running. That small victory felt monumental. But that moment wasn’t just about fixing code - it was symbolic. It was proof that I could belong here, that I could start over.