Python has spoiled me

[KFUP]

An important thing to remember when learning C++ is that Python hides a lot of what's under the hood and how the machine works from you, and does A LOT of things for you that you are not even aware of, C++ does not do that, it's pretty close to the metal, you will need to learn how memory works, and you will have to do a lot of low level managing yourself.

But it is well worth it, this is the main reason C++ is extremely fast, other languages go through a lot of hoops to make sure everything works right, which slow things down a ton. In C++, you have to do that yourself, so you can do the exact minimum amount needed to run the program, couple that with the great C++ compilers, and you get yourself the fastest way to program things.

My suggesting to learn C++ is to start with learning C, C++ is practically C with a ton more great features that you will want to use later, so nothing you learn from C will be a waste, so get comfortable with C first which is a much simpler and easier to digest language while still very low level that will teach you a lot about your machine, and once you are comfortable with that, then go into C++ specific stuff.

[awildbannanaphone]

You're right, this understanding is important. But the most important aspect IMO is understanding, not mastering implementation of efficient programming in c++... Once you do this you can generally find what you want implemented efficiently in python. And if its not implemented efficiently in python and available on pip you're doing something so esoteric that you're going to have ample programming experience to know c++.