I am interested in those magical machine learning algorithms themselves. I am not particularly keen on compute science.
I tried to write a C++ program to implement Decision tree classifier because I could not possibly have a tree data structure in R. I don't like using packages in R because I want to use my own code. But I find myself spending too much time on writing constructors, destructors and working on input or output the data.
C++ does not have a big standard library and it is a pain in the ass to get the makefile works and link external libraries to it.
Here's the solution: learn to write those algorithms in Python, where the language itself should be more friendly.
Also, learn C++ grammar and basics day by day, until you master it.