Yes, for many workloads C/C++ is faster, and often lots faster. However, we are now close with dynamic languages for some workloads.
Dynamically typed languages are doing AOT compilation and also starting to get very good type inference, such that code is getting similar to C++ speeds. See the 'shedskin' rpython to C++ compiler, and the latest firefox JavaScript type inference work. PyPy has shown faster than C speeds for certain workloads. Also, the luajit2 project has shown faster than C speeds for certain workloads. This comes from being able to do full program optimisations at runtime over module boundaries which is not possible in C/C++.
C/C++ compilation is still much more advanced and faster in certain areas. Especially with auto vectorising, and a vast array of research and resources put into it that is far ahead of dynamic language developments.
Dynamically typed languages are doing AOT compilation and also starting to get very good type inference, such that code is getting similar to C++ speeds. See the 'shedskin' rpython to C++ compiler, and the latest firefox JavaScript type inference work. PyPy has shown faster than C speeds for certain workloads. Also, the luajit2 project has shown faster than C speeds for certain workloads. This comes from being able to do full program optimisations at runtime over module boundaries which is not possible in C/C++.
C/C++ compilation is still much more advanced and faster in certain areas. Especially with auto vectorising, and a vast array of research and resources put into it that is far ahead of dynamic language developments.
cheers,