Apologies for another internet forum quote, but I thought this was interesting and wanted to ask:
C++ is faster if you chuck the "safety" features of programming languages and avoid things like STL, and Boost. In raw bytes to bytes C++ is faster, but then again so is C.
The moment you add the baggage of STL, and Boost you are slower than well written C# code. The advantage that the C# JIT and Java jit have is that those safety features are well optimized. C++ safety features rely on the optimization of the compiler.
Thus if you are not careful with your STL, and Boost code you will have a lame duck of an application.
I agree about ridding of the safety features, but I have seen a lot of high frequency job adverts and they all ask for Boost experience. Surely Boost cannot be something bad to producing fast code? Or is this person merely stating theoretically if you simply manipulated at byte level it would be faster?
Edit : The quote is about STL and Boost, thus I added the STL tag.