If I'm writing C++, I am doing it because I need nanosecond latency (and the delicious language libraries). If I only need microsecond latency, I would use Golang. If millisecond is fine, it'd be Python in a hot minute.

If I only need (as is 99% of the time the case) a smidge of code to run nanosecond-fast, I'd write a C extension and call it from a higher-level language that does the orchestration code. The C extension would by definition be simple code, so there is no real problem with C as such - it's ideally suited for that role.

Only in the rare case that a large program needs to be nanosecond-fast would I even consider C++ (and I'd push really hard to learn if that really needed to be true!), and then I'd write code like it was 2003 - smart pointers and POD classes, but that's it. The new libraries are wonderful for saving code and getting good fast implementation of algos!