As I probably wouldn't write my own smart contracts but just use EOS (I wish it lots of success as the things I have read about it sound great) I don't mind if it is C++. Coming from a web development background and seeing the rapid adoption of JavaScript / NodeJS (Go too) for all kinds of things I think it's a bit of a pity that all those developers able to code would have a steep (ok maybe not steep but still) learning curve writing a contract using C++.
@dan Would there be the possibility to define smart contracts in ES6 and then (somehow) convert / compile them to C++?
JavaScript doesn't have declarative syntax like in C++. there is no all let's make this a variable an integer or this variable something else, whereas C++ does so. C++ also has classes and operator overloading whereas Javascript does not.
It seems to me C++ should be the soirce and JS sometimes the target. Although sometimes reading erors related to templates can be like reading Greek.