C++ has a lot of compile time programming features that C cannot do practically. There are sometimes alternatives to those mechanisms in C, but they rely on man

C++ has a lot of compile time programming features that C cannot do practically. There are sometimes alternatives to those mechanisms in C, but they rely on mangling, macros, non-portable tricks, and so on. On the topic of performance, the best counterargument to C++ from a C perspective would be that hand rolled code generation isn't all that bad in practice. It's just language theorists don't like that approach aesthetically.