"""I used this argument for Java, but it's the same with C++. If I can deliver a first version 2 months before the C++ version gets ready, I'll have two months to optimize market-tested algorithms before you hit the market. I may even have time to rewrite the sensitive parts in C."""

Yeah, the only problem with that logic is that it never happens.

(Except in the server space, where it doesn't matter what language you're using to make your web app, and you can throw more server boxes at it to make it go faster).

1) Very few commercial programs are made with some dynamic language as opposed to C/C++, and none in the fields where performance matters (games, video, multimedia) etc.

2) Some do incorporate a scripting language, but for non critical layers (Lightroom for example uses Lua for its UI scripting, but all image crunching is in C/C++).

3) It's not like time to market matters that much. You're not building Facebook, you're building a desktop app. Chances are a lot more exist in the same section of the market.

4) """For many things the world really moved on.""" --care to give some examples of successful desktop apps not written in C/C++?

I'm sure you'll find 10.

I doubt you'll find 20.