Happened to me a while ago:

co-worker: don't use (C++) templates so your colleagues who aren't as smart as you don't have such a hard time understanding your code.
me: said the guy who uses macros all over the place.
co-worker: macros have been around for years and you can expect one to understand those.
me: *tempted to start a discussion about C++ with one who started programming with C like 20 years ago and who doesn't give a fuck about learning new things*... You're right!

I program C++ for hobby so excuse my probably dumb question which I could easily google; aren't templates a thing in C++ since a looooooong time?

Yes they are, but this guy prefers to stick to his C code style that he knows, ignoring almost all the language concepts that distinguish C++ from C except the very basic object oriented class design.

Basically he believes that the more abstract the code gets the harder it is to maintain and to more time it takes for new programmers to get acquainted with the code. Most "new" language concepts help with making a developers life easier often at the cost of higher abstraction or more complicated to learn rules. Thus they are all evil. I think he just doesn't want to spend time learning new stuff.

@erik404 more than 30 years.

@elazar : the guy uses Microsoft Visual C++ only. I guess that's why he thinks templates are a rather new feature 😁