"In many programming circles, the mention of C++ merits a big yawn. It's not that the language is retired, since some 38 percent of software developers use C++ at least part of the time, according to Evans Data, Inc. But it's no longer perceived as cool."
Guy Steele's keynote at the 1998 ACM OOPSLA conference on "Growing a Language" (mostly about JAVA) discusses the importance of and issues associated with designing a programming language that can be grown by its users.