There is a third way... don't write ArrayView<> and put all the "C style" code in the constructor and destructor of a Mesh class. Then you get something you fin

There is a third way... don't write ArrayView<> and put all the "C style" code in the constructor and destructor of a Mesh class. Then you get something you find intuitive and you get exception safety. Your comment that this is less readable is valid. Readability varies widely with background, skillset, consistency, and a host of other factors. If your team finds C-style code more intuitive, don't write Java style code. If your team finds malloc error prone, use smart pointers. Perhaps the biggest advantage of C++ is its flexibility, at least compared to the other mainstream languages. This means everyone can write code the way they want and others can use it (a). (a) OK. There is still a large list of gotchas around types, the preprocessor, header inclusions, namespacing, etc. that you need to know about to be a good citizen, at least until C++ can figure out how to support modules.