Before a couple weeks ago, the last time I had used C++ was back in 1998, I think. I never enjoyed "C with classes" and I vowed to never touch it again. Last year, I attempted to put together a simple MNIST digit recognition program using plain old C. I gave up and did it in Fortran (working with matrices is SO easy!). Now, however, I've matured a little and realized that I really needed to get back into C++ and seriously use it. So I retaught myself the language using Stroustrup's Programming book (the one that has C++14) and his preferred methods (teaching the use of vectors early on is great!).

Now that I've approached the language in its C++14 mode and using good libraries such as Armadillo, I've come to the conclusion that all this talk about C++ being too low-level and too difficult is ridiculous. If you're not using libraries and programming in a higher level, you're not doing it right. I've been rewriting that digit recognition program and I've yet to declare a pointer or allocate any memory on my own. In fact, its so high-level that it almost looks like Matlab code.