> As someone who spent a few weeks trying to get into C++ and kind of just gave up out of confusion

what should be conclude from this? this is like saying you tried to become a professional trapeze artist for a couple of days. C++ is complex and deep. what did you seriously hope to accomplish in a "few weeks"?

i started writing C++ professionally 4 years ago, i.e., i write it every single day at $JOB. there are still large parts of the language i'm not familiar with.

> what should be conclude from this? … C++ is complex and deep.

Yes, that's the point. Much of this complexity would not be necessary to achieve the same things, given the ability to redesign from scratch.