Sounds like you would appreciate this talk: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wo84LFzx5nI&pp=ygUSVGhlIGJpZyB...
Personally I use C or something, anything other than C++ really, if I need something more ergonomic or provably correct. Many excuse C++’s design history with “they didn’t know better”, but the oft forgotten history explained in that video shows otherwise.
I haven't played with Zig yet, but it does look like what I want C++ to be; something unapologetically low level but given some high-level constructs for safety and ergonomics. I haven't had a huge impetus to learn it because Rust has been happily occupying that space for me but it certainly can't hurt to play with Zig.
I should write an Ffmpeg codec with it or something this weekend to try it out.