Does it matter which language you use?

Yes, but don't expect miracles. Some people seem to believe that a programming language can or at least should solve most of their problems with system building. They are condemned to search forever for the perfect programming language and become repeatedly disappointed. Others dismiss programming languages as unimportant "implementation details" and put their money into development processes and design methods. They are condemned to program in COBOL, C, and proprietary design languages forever. A good language - such as C++ - can do a lot for a designer and a programmer, as long as its strengths and limitations are clearly understood and respected.

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It's made more horrible by the fact that a lot of substandard programmers use it.
I don't think that's the fault of the language. Rather, we should be blaming the true perpetrator here: Microsoft. Their MFC/ATL, COM/DCOM, and Hungarian notation practices bred an entire generation of mediocre, no terrible C++ programmers.

The core Standard C++ language and libraries are decent, and other C++ frameworks are quite excellent. See Qt. Just don't have anyone who is a Microsoft-only programmer have anything to do with your projects.