I know right? I do feel a warm fuzzy feeling when things compile and I generally feel much safer than when building things in Ruby.

Me too. I don't mind working in a good C++ codebase. It feels a lot safer than working in Ruby where things suffer from bitrot due to a culture of new and shiny.

When I talk to the youngsters about this exact feeling they look at me like I'm nuts. Coming from Ada/Modula-2/etc. where you put the thought in up front and if it compiled you were a long way to being "right" isn't something they get.