I learned C++ the hard way: by hacking on a million-LOC program. It's taught me to loathe the language. It's big, complex, and incomprehensible. I once spent three days chasing a bug through a twisty little maze of templates, all different. I routinely struggle with the implications of static vs. not, member variables vs. globals vs. statics, functions that are part of a class vs. those that aren't... Getting code to even compile is often an exercise in trying something, running the build process, then trying something else, lather, rinse, repeat. It's left me frustrated enough to want to drive to College Station and scream at the walls.
All of this has left me wishing for the days of C, in which I'm quite fluent.
Nevertheless, the world seems (perhaps overly) enamored of C++, and I'm probably going to have to deal with it. How do I learn to at least tolerate it, if not like it, instead of actively hating it?