Starting with a meta-makefile in Premake is one way to go about learning C++, I suppose. But it seems to add an unnecessary layer of complexity and abstraction for beginners. And shared libraries, while an important thing to know about for many real-world projects, are not really part of the C++ language at all.

Yes, eventually you will probably want to figure out how to do cross-platform development. But if you really want to just learn the C++ language, I would start with an actual IDE, such as Visual Studio or Xcode, and just stick to one platform.

Or better yet, just use an online environment such as cpp.sh or ideone.com or codechef.com.

I think these are salient points. Part of my rationale for writing it the way I did is that howistart is slightly editorial in nature and is a collection of opinionated overviews of a professional workflow by design. In the real world, C++ is never used in vacuum (since its runtime is a very thin layer on top of the operating system). Also, C++ is generally chosen because it compiles on many platforms, and awareness of meta-make systems and how executables are structured and run is important in a professional working environment.

This is why I make it clear at the beginning that the article isn't meant to be an introduction to the language (non-goal!) and also point out references for a beginner to learn from later. I also mention that learning a single IDE first and learning it well is a good idea.