Initially coming mostly from the Java ecosystem with its mature (not perfect) build and dependency story, it took me days to understand that none of that exists

Initially coming mostly from the Java ecosystem with its mature (not perfect) build and dependency story, it took me days to understand that none of that exists in C++. All of it seems to be based on copying dependencies around or installing them on a system level. Plus mostly template/text driven make files. I'm still not sure if this is really how C++ is developed. Four years ago, when I last looked, I wasn't able to find a good resource for people with my background to learn C++ the ecosystem (not the language). That turned me to Rust. All of this text to give strong support for your first paragraph.