I find C++ not hard at all when working with familiar idioms, restrictions and toolings (familiar to me). But it's hard jumping into new codebases and adjusting yourself to new patterns. Recently I did a lot of programming using C++23 Modules and it was a breeze.

There's basically dozens of very nice languages inside C++. That can be a blessing or a curse.

I'm anxious for Herb Sutter's CPP2/CPPFront to become a standard.

I agree.

You don't learn or know C++ in the way you learn or know C.

You never have the total language spec in mind. Much of it you will never (and for some of it should never) come across.

The way I think of it

C is an abstraction of the machine, so thin it's nearly transparent.

C++ is an abstraction over programming paradigms, letting you pick how you think.

Everything else abstracts the machine away, replacing it with a VM, runtime, or model of its own.

The same way a good project has a clear model of the problem it should have a clear C++ pattern in use.

There are so many standards and idioms that it gets confusing. There are still legacy codebases out there — some codebase still use C++98 as their standard, others use C++11... And with Unreal Engine, the modern C++ standard is C++14, right? There are things like smart pointers, but some places don't even use them. I feel like there are just too many features. When I saw template metaprogramming — that new feature — I realized I have no talent for C++.

> The downside is it needs a brain warm-up, and this is per project, but once that flywheel is spinning, I find it almost effortless to write code.

How is that different from other languages, which don't need the brain warm-up?