@rastilin @scherzog @lina I can readily beat the crap out of a great amount of C code, performance wise, with C++ so I'm not sure what you're measuring there. Look at how a C vs. C++ developer might make a binary tree for example: C++ version is faster and safer. If you want to do build time processing in C you're also stuck with the preprocessor. Maybe the C++ code was crap, or maybe it's something C++ is really bad at...I dunno, but it sounds suspect.
@crazyeddie @rastilin @scherzog @lina Benchmarks like that are ran against theoretically perfect implementations of various algorithms, not whatever a developer would realistically write unless given infinite time and knowledge. Having readily available and well-optimized algorithm and other utility libraries is very helpful, like you say.