This isn't really a fair criticism because:

1. You picked probably the most verbose way to do it.

2. It's not valid C++ because you're assigning a pointer to a value.

3. Idiomatic C++ doesn't use `new` explicitly anyway

4. The `d = {}` of Python is not really equivalent.

My feeling is that python gains brevity in exchange for putting a heavier mental load on the programmer, which is manageable for small programs but becomes unwieldy for larger ones.