A *good* C++ programmer will probably write code that outperforms the equivalent in Java. A *good* C+ programmer will remember to deallocate all of his objects to prevent memory leaks. A *good* C++ programmer will copy his strings correctly to prevent buffer overflow exploits.

If you have been involved in developmnent for any reasonable amount of time or worked on projects of reasonable size, you know that *good* programmers are hard to come by. When you add the real world to the picture you find that simple things like garbage collection and a virtual machine can make a mediocre java programmer outperform a mediocre C++ programmer.

If schools actually learned to produce good programmers, and HR departments learned how to identify them, and job interviews verified them, we wouldn't be having this discussion.

No he won't. Because if he has to think about either of those things, he is programming C in a C++ environment. And is therefore not a *good* C++ programmer. His code is probably not even exception safe. He'd be kicked off any decent C++ programming team rather quickly. That aside, I'm reminded of a joke that does go somewhat against my point, but is still funny:

Bjarne Stroustrup : why so many people use "C++" just as "C" ?
Dennis Ritchie : because you named the language "C++", not "++C"