Using c++ without (most of) the standard library and avoiding operator overloads has made me like the language again. It's an extremely capable language, but my LORD is it bloated and overgrown. Using it like "c with classes" again is the way.

I can imagine that using just a subset of it is more comfortable and will introduce consistent programming behavior. I also wanted to upgrade to C++ and use it in the way you describe. But then came AI and got very distracted. DId you know AI actually is quite good at C? Much wow :)

The problem with c++ is that all of the old defaults are now bad practices, so to do anything right you need keywords everywhere.

Yes!!! That's what I've been saying about C devs for ages now: Just program C++ like it was C, then at least you have some damn features *if* you need them :P

Yup.

Most of the C++ stuff I use is miscellaneous utils like min, max, clamp, abs, swap, that kind of shit, then maybe there's constexpr and auto here and there. I tried to do more "idiomatic" style some years back, but it's just dull, so I dropped it.

The strength of pure C is that you can have a much more simplified mental model of what the fuck is going on. Also you can more easily see the assembly through your mind's eye if you commune with evil spirits. I think C++ can and should be just *that*, with quality of life features, so I get to be lazy.

Ultimately it boils down to two competing philosophies on how to achieve abstraction: writing more code versus adding language features. The latter, I think, has most definitely lost.

@12bitfloat @Liebranca yeah shit like move semantics and references to references and left and right and blah blah blah blah made me think "even if I was smart enough to understand c++, it seems like a mental exercise every time you need to write it"

solution: FUCK that shit! Use pointers if you want, screw references. Are references easier? Sometimes. Are they harder to understand the edge cases for? Fuck yes. Do you need to use them? Fuck no.

Just small stuff like that can make your c++ experience much nicer.

@lungdart I do find myself at least marking non-mutating functions as const, but that's as far as I will go.

This is exactly why I often default to Go. It captures the simplicity of C while being expressive for modern systems with the way interfaces and concurrency works.

Summertimes it tries to be overly simple in the Syntax making it harder to read but generally they did a lot of things right and idiomatic code reads and maintains well.

@AlgoRythm the language is so vast that you can have such different styles they basically become dialects.

To be fair this is a bit of an issue with all older languages but I've had the hardest time reading C++ over the decades.