I've been programming in C++ since the 1980s. If I were to start a new project today, I'd seriously consider Rust over C++ for a large number of reasons, and I'm not sure that I'd ever start a new C++ program today in 2023. Rust is probably the wave of the future for compiled applications, and certainly, C++ is not.

That said, I'm baffled at this sentence. I have 99 problems with C++, but memory safety is not one of them. I don't remember having one memory safety issue in the last ten years that I programmed in C++. There's a simple and systematic way to write C++ using smart pointers, and never have memory leaks or dangling pointers.

So I think you maybe did the right thing, but perhaps for the wrong reason.

(I'm sort of baffled, also, that speed was your problem all the way through in a web application. Generally, web apps aren't CPU bound, and when they are, it's generally one specific part of the backend that does real calculations, while the rest is basically waiting for socket connections. Did you profile?)

Still, an entertaining article, accept claps!