[rand_r]

Something I’ve been curious about recently, is how did Linux get away with straight C for so long, considering how complex of a project it is. Did they end up reimplementing a bunch of C++ features?

Actually, regarding sophisticated projects, there’s quite some complicated projects that succeed without C++ power, like Postgres and Python.

[troad]

I didn't mean to imply, if I have, that C++ is always and in all circumstances the best choice for any given software project.

The question was about the first compiled language someone should learn, and for that, C++ is great. It's going to cover most of the use cases for compiled languages, while providing relatively familiar abstractions and semantics.

C is fantastic when you need to eke out every single cycle of performance, which is why it's a great choice for Python and Postgres. But you do this by effectively writing assembly instructions, which is why it's a terrible choice for someone coming to compiled languages for the first time.

C++ gives you equivalent performance to C, for a fraction of the effort, in about 90% of the use cases. For the remaining use cases, C is a better (and often only) choice, but no one who is only learning compiled languages for the first time is anywhere near being able to write that kind of C code. (After a few years of C++ they'll be in a much better place to do so!)