Where did you ever get the idea that C and Rust are more performant than C++ code? Modern C++ produces the fastest code of any language in wide use, empirically

Where did you ever get the idea that C and Rust are more performant than C++ code? Modern C++ produces the fastest code of any language in wide use, empirically, and I don’t think many people would argue that. People don’t use C++ because they love its elegance — who would? — they use it for its raw power and expressiveness. C has not been used for applications where performance is a priority for many years now. C lacks the expressiveness to make many software optimizations practical. I’ve written database engines in both C and modern C++ and it is no contest, C++ is much more concise while producing faster code. People primarily still use C for portability.