[SamReidHughes]

I think learning C++ is fine, and I don't think you should worry about obsolescence. I think any language that replaces C++ will still use its idioms. When it comes to high performance stuff, the real knowledge is not in C++, it's in dealing with cache-friendliness, how to shovel stuff in/out the network or other devices quickly, architectural stuff like event loops vs. threads. I think C++, the language, is a tiny portion of that knowledge.