I have done low-level and mobile programming on very restricted platforms and I cannot see any reason why in the world I would use C instead of C++. Basically there is always an opportunity to use C++ if you can use C. Myths that C++ is slower are spread by people who just do not know C++ well or are not skilled/clever enough to use it.
Indeed. And there are numerous reasons why C++ code can be/is significantly faster; firstly code inlining for code that would be required to use function pointers in C (ala qsort vs std::sort), secondly, things such as expression templates for things such as Matrix libraries.
Re:The Unreasonable Effectiveness of C
by jasonzemos on Thursday January 10, 2013 @02:26PM
(#5039142)
Bravo. I had to read 15 minutes worth of comments to finally find one person who actually knows the truth. And this little gem was downvoted. Bravo.
I'd completely agree. I would not use C for doing any web platform work (writing a REST service as you say). I may write a webserver in C if I had tight memory constraints.
Where I see C still being very useful: embedded applications, drivers, and latency sensitive code.
When you are trying to push the most I/O possible through a network interface or disk interface, C allows extremely tight controls on memory and CPU usage. Especially if you are coding to a specific CPU for an embedded product, you can really tweak the app to perform as required (though, this may require some assembly to do what you need).