I think these are salient points. Part of my rationale for writing it the way I did is that howistart is slightly editorial in nature and is a collection of opi

I think these are salient points. Part of my rationale for writing it the way I did is that howistart is slightly editorial in nature and is a collection of opinionated overviews of a professional workflow by design. In the real world, C++ is never used in vacuum (since its runtime is a very thin layer on top of the operating system). Also, C++ is generally chosen because it compiles on many platforms, and awareness of meta-make systems and how executables are structured and run is important in a professional working environment. This is why I make it clear at the beginning that the article isn't meant to be an introduction to the language (non-goal!) and also point out references for a beginner to learn from later. I also mention that learning a single IDE first and learning it well is a good idea.