On Saturday, 4 March 2017 at 18:09:10 UTC, Anthony wrote:
To give context to my question, I don't have a problem with GCs, and this question isn't stemming from a C++ background. I've been told to learn C++ though, due to its efficiency and power.
I think you should start with "What kind of programs do I want to write?" rather than what language to choose. Then pick the best language for that domain.
But if you want to learn C++, then starting with the basic C subset and add feature by feature from C++ is the best alternative. If learning C++ is your goal then you need to get to terms with well thought out memory management strategies.
Of the non-C++ languages that could give you some structure Rust is possibly one that could give you some training, as the Rust compiler enforce what you should try to achieve in C++ with unique_ptr (roughly the same memory model in principle).
Also, there are many variants of C++ (C++17/C++11, C++03, C++98...) which leads to very different programming idioms.
It takes many years to become proficient in C++. I would estimate that it will take 1-2 years from someone already proficient in C++98 to become proficient in C++17.
