Yes, however it comes at a cost. Re-implementing existing PHP functions may not always be easy. I've been developing a server-side application and although PHP or Python might be easier, I'm doing it in C++ for the power, and speed. Unfortunately, I run into speed bumps like this:
Nabble - Regex
I have yet to find a really good URL parser (hopefully not attached to an additional library, except boost). Oh well. Maybe Boost::Spirit. I dunno. Cool thing is if I get desperate, I can probably just load the PHP C API or source.