Modern C++, as defined in the C++11 standard has evolved to become analgorithmic language. This represents as much an idiomatic departure from Object Orientation as C++ was a departure from C’s procedural top-down composition. “C++11 feels like a new language,” says Bjarne Stroustrup [Stroustrup]. The primary focus of modern C++ has become algorithms and generic programming. To this end, the language absorbs a number of idioms from other languages and paradigms, ranging from functional to meta programming concepts. Incidentally this is also the realm in which a much older language has done exceedingly well — since the 1950s: Lisp. Lisp is not only the first implementation of the Lambda Calculus but its entire structure is optimised to make generic programming easier. This paper will explore how the high level approach to developing programs in C++ is increasingly shaped by some of the same forces that dominate in developing programs using Lisp.