C++ vs. C#

A few of my more C++-centric friends and colleagues have sent me pointers to Grumpy Old Programmer's "Has C# lost its point?" grump. While I naturally enjoy seeing VC++ portrayed in a positive light, I think it's a bit silly to suggest that C# has lost the very impetus for its existence simply because CLR has been elegantly folded into the C++ language. It's clear Grumpy Old Programmer is a C++ fan (not unlike many other grumpy old programmers I know), and that's great! However, Grumpy's grump seems to be a classic case of the old "my programming language is better because I like it better" argument that always comes down to the unarguable issue of personal preference. I'd like to pull a few quotes out of the grump because I think it's important to make the point that I truly believe that C++ and C# are and will continue to be useful languages in their own right.
>>The truth is that this new development in C++ seriously undermines the justification for C# as a language. C++ programmers yet to learn C# simply don’t need to now.<<>>What’s the point? They will find the full productivity of Visual Studio 2005 right there at their fingertips supporting the language they know and love. Why should they move to something that is slower and less feature rich?<<>compile->debug->repeat cycles. Where changes can be made and tested in smaller increments. And feature rich? Well, it's definitely true that C++ developers have a massive arsenal of language features and libraries at their disposal to attack whatever problem they need to solve. But let's say you want to design a web form in the IDE... well, you can't do that in C++. Rather than trying to claim that one language is more feature rich than the other, I would simply say that each language experience is optimized for a different set of scenarios.

>>It will be interesting to see how many ex C++ programmers slip back to C++ now that it is fully .NET enabled.<<>>Of course, Microsoft will continue to promote C# as the native .NET language – they simply can’t afford to admit that they have foistered a brand new language on the programming world that is broadly feature-identical to other languages, and cannot pretend to be a replacement for C++. <<>>C# acolytes will no doubt be pampered with IDE features that are denied to other developers (for no technical reason)<<>