C++ がプログラミング言語に与えた一番大きな影響は move semantics ではないかと思う。ふと move semantics を最初に提唱したのはだれか気になった。
This proposal is the result of the work of many people over an extended period of time. We did not sit down by ourselves one day and "invent" move semantics. Andrew Koenig first got Howard interested in move semantics, although he had been reading about the concept in the newsgroups for a couple of years by then. Andy was also the first one to point out how swap could use move.