Better question: Can C++ be fast? Yes. But depending on the skill -- or lack thereof -- of the developer it can be dreadfully slow. Besides, speed isn't the bes

Better question: Can C++ be fast? Yes. But depending on the skill -- or lack thereof -- of the developer it can be dreadfully slow. Besides, speed isn't the best metric for judging a language. In the late 90s there was a joke among Windows desktop developers: Which is faster, C++ or VB6? The answer was "VB6, by six months" and there was a ton of truth to that statement (and by the time the C++ version would have been done the parts of the VB desktop app that had performance issues could have been identified and the logic replaced with C++ COM Objects). The language is just a tool; USE the tool, don't be a tool.