OKCupid is pretty cool...but I can't imagine writing web apps in C++. It just seems pointless and kinda stupid. Performance of machines is so good these days...even the slowest web frameworks in high level languages (RoR and Zope/Plone come to mind) are plenty fast enough for almost every requirement.
I'm sure the guys writing it right now can do fine with the language (and it appears they've created a reasonable DSL on top of C++), but hiring competent developers to take over or help move the product forward faster will be difficult. And, of course, there's a lot of benefit to choosing languages that are already in wide use for the general task you're working on. When I want to add email capabilities to my Perl or Ruby web apps, I go to CPAN or the gems library to find a good email library. In C++, I'm not convinced I'd be able to add interesting email capabilities (receiving, parsing, sending, etc.) in an afternoon...but I'm sure I could in Perl. But maybe I'm just too limited when working in C++.
I'm sure the guys writing it right now can do fine with the language (and it appears they've created a reasonable DSL on top of C++), but hiring competent developers to take over or help move the product forward faster will be difficult. And, of course, there's a lot of benefit to choosing languages that are already in wide use for the general task you're working on. When I want to add email capabilities to my Perl or Ruby web apps, I go to CPAN or the gems library to find a good email library. In C++, I'm not convinced I'd be able to add interesting email capabilities (receiving, parsing, sending, etc.) in an afternoon...but I'm sure I could in Perl. But maybe I'm just too limited when working in C++.