This is a short one, but I just wanted to talk about how I am going to try and enjoy C++, or at least a subset of features from it.

Features I am using

1. RAII (destructors): this is literally a life-saver, an angel sent from the sky to save programming. Jokes aside, RAII is very useful and one of the few reasons C++ is worth it.
2. Basic templates: templates can become some real assholes but, if used simply, they are also a really useful feature C++ offers over C.
3. Non-owning views: std::span<T> for making an efficient view of vectors, arrays, etc. and std::string_view for making an efficient non-owning view of a string.
4. std::unique_ptr and std::array: single ownership without manual free, and arrays know their size.
5. Namespaces and enum class: they replace mylib_subthingy_ prefixes by nicer MyLib::Subthingy:: and avoid enum-name collisions, also life savers.
6. constexpr and auto: constexpr replaces a lot of macro constants and lookup-table generation. auto saves me from spelling out long typenames.
7. Lambdas: no more callback + void* userdata with captured state.

Features I am banning

1. Inheritance and virtual.
2. Exceptions (-fno-exceptions).
3. RTTI (-fno-rtti).
4. Operator overloading unless ultra necessary (math types).
5. iostream.
6. <algorithm>/ranges pipelines.
7. Anything with SFINAE.

Drawbacks

1. RAII drags in copy/move semantics: I have to learn move semantics mandatorily if I want to use C++, at some point I will need to decide what happens to a type when it’s copied or moved.
2. Subset is self-enforced: every library, header and error will still use the full language. Some errors are still awful even if I limit my feature usage.

Conclusions

I am going to try and use C++ with a limited subset, seeing if I like it by making the same program in plain C and in this C++ subset.

At the end of the day, there are some C++ features I do enjoy.