I learnt C++ 30 years ago (1991)  and C about 10 years ago.  Mind you I’d had several years of Pascal by then including some OOP (Object Oriented Programming) so it wasn’t that big a thing to learn C++ after Pascal.

For me it’s the objects and the template structures like vect that make the difference. Most C programs that I’ve written don’t really progress beyond using an array of structs. Asteroids, which at 2,200 lines long used a few of those but that was it.

In fact if I wanted any more complicated data structures in C programs, I’d either have to use a 3rd party library or roll my own using pointers.

Programs I’ve written in C# probably use List<Class> more than any other data structure with Dictionary<string,Class> a close second. It really depends upon the type of program you are writing. A lot of mine are reading from a text file or database file, holding data in memory then outputting results.

C++ offers more advanced data structures than C and I spent a fair bit of time rewriting Asteroids replacing all the array of structs as arrays of objects.  Inheritance isn’t that big a thing in OOP but it was handy here because I was able to initially have Asteroids, Space Ships, Bullets and Aliens classes all inherit from a moveable base class. That class had all the code for rotation, movement etc. I found though that C++ could be a real pain when trying to do comparisons between different superclasses and eventually switched from inheritance to composition so those classes had a moveable object instead.

The downside to C++ is remembering if you are copying or moving objects. Not a problem you have in C. One of the interesting problems is how you track the number of active Asteroids which can change from frame to frame. In C I used a fixed array of structs with a field showing whether it was active. Using a vect though and pushing and popping asteroid objects would probably take longer.