Exactly... I've never gotten the whole "C++ is so unsafe" thing. If you're having trouble with manual memory management in modern C++, it's likely because you're doing something wrong.

There are use-cases for it, but if you're working with something so performance critical that you can't afford an std::array or unique_ptr, you're probably better off just writing straight C instead (except then you don't even have references).

Modern C++ has a shitload of guardrails if you care to use them, but also lets you say "fuck it, this void* points to a double, trust me" if you want to.