Ooo, I can do that in Perl 6 too.

    #!/usr/bin/env perl6

    sub MAIN(*@filename) {
        for @filename -> $file {
            my $bag = $file.IO.slurp.words.Bag;
            say "$file: { [+] $bag.values } words";
            CATCH { default { say "Unable to count words in $file"; } }
        }
    }

The author did have a point he wanted to put across with the hash table - "Obviously, a frequency distribution was not necessary for just the counts, but I did want to highlight basic autovivification"

ref: http://www.reddit.com/r/cpp/comments/369lcn/can_c_become_you...

That doesn't feel like a good reason. The author could easily have come up with a better task (eg. count the number of words with more than one occurrence). This allows you to approach the problem in the optimal way in each language.

You're totally right.