No, you're worse off in C++, where the semantics of exceptions (especially in the area of resource allocation and deletion) are complex and hard to reason about

No, you're worse off in C++, where the semantics of exceptions (especially in the area of resource allocation and deletion) are complex and hard to reason about. I've done a bunch of kernel and other systems work in C and in C++, and my experience is that the C is a lot clearer. This type of code is all about not having magic side effects; everything needs to be in the open and very plain, or bugs start to get pretty subtle and hairy. I'm not saying "Don't do systems programming in C++", because clearly you can. But it takes discipline to succeed, probably more discipline than you need to apply than if you're writing C.