you DO need to be a wizard to launch a large C++ project.

Yes, languages that are beginner friendly are ... friendlier. Yes, languages that stick to one or a small number of programming paradigms are friendlier. But if you want the "flexible efficiency and raw power of C" and "something higher level than C", C++ is your baby.

Maybe it would be better if we all used Java, Rust, and Go, but C++ sings its siren von Neumann song to the wizards, and there will always be wizard musicologists who steer their projects toward those rocks and, when they have just enough wax in their ears, they sail right past the rocks and come out the other side of the straits leading the rest of the fleet.

You can choose to follow them or not, for there's no shame in coming in 4th.