Zig's interoperability with C really is a stroke of genius. That and the fact that it tries to focus on simplicity with no hidden control flow. It's a fine line to walk, because there's always a tradeoff between abstracting things away to make the code more readable, and tucking potentially critical flaws away out of sight. But so many of C++'s edges come from that hidden control flow, and quirks around things like initialization, ownership, and even things like assignment that less experienced programmers take for granted (if they've ever thought about it at all). And I say that as someone who uses C++17 both professionally and privately, and enjoys the language.