The difference is that using STL containers such as std::string or std::vector are very much the default in C++ (much the same way ‘safe’ code is the default in

The difference is that using STL containers such as std::string or std::vector are very much the default in C++ (much the same way ‘safe’ code is the default in Rust), whereas you have to do some manual work in C to get them. The result is that using std::string and std::vector here is the natural solution in C++, whereas likely very experienced C programmers stuck to the manual approach.