I went a different route and wrote my own visual scripting (Unreal engine 4 style but more limited) for my latest project that spits out C++ and compiles entire levels as shared libraries. Compile times are a bit longer but compared to bothering with bindings, garbage collection, additional dependencies and languages it outweighs the alternative big time as far as I'm concerned.
Also I wouldn't say that a half baked language such as Java is any better... From where I stand it's far worse and the worst thing is that Java programmers come to C++ thinking that similarity in syntax makes them a language expert, sprinkle new and delete all over your code making it unmaintainable and then blame the language "escape hatch" feature for being a poor excuse for a language while not even understanding the basics of RAII...
Also I could be wrong but from my experience programmers that know C before C++ are right behind Java programmers as far as abusing language features goes so either I've had a lot of bad luck with C programmers in the past or learning C before C++ is indeed more a handicap than a benefit when learning and using C++.

Now that's what I'd call a poor advice. I always prefer the latest version of C++ and didn't even notice how much the language has changed for the better until I was forced to switch back to C++98 for one half a year project (IBM compiler restrictions on AIX at that point in time) - at that point I really started to appreciate the upgrades that the language received. Same goes for the STL (from standard algorithms to standard containers) so when I read your comment I start wondering why some people stopped using goto for all the branching and looping and started to use that if/for madness??? Change must be a terrible plague for some people.

Probably depends on the version of Delphi and the features that you've used. From my experience Delphi is as error prone as C but more verbose when things go wrong and if you mix interfaces and the rest of the language it takes quite a while before you figure out why your objects are destroyed... So as far as error prone Dephi takes the lead and once you see the additions over the years you start to appreciate the amount of consistency goes into extending C++ compared to languages such as Delphi where they do the Java style "I have an idea, let's put it in without considering the rest of the language" language development. From my experience programming in Delphi is faster due to compile times but also far more error prone specially when compared to newer versions of C++.