Re: What's up with C++ (books)?

On Monday 30 May 2011, Kjell Rilbe wrote:
> Den 2011-05-26 21:06 skrev Michael Schuerig såhär:
> > I have a lurking suspicion that C++ just isn't cool anymore. But is
> > that all there is to it?
> 
> Well, maybe it's just me, but I always felt, and still feel, that C++
> is too complicated to be of real practical use. There are just too
> many ways to not only shoot yourself in the foot, but totally blow
> your head off.
> 
> I've been using Delphi for ages, and have now switched to C#. Delphi
> has its quirks which, like C++, allows you to mess yourself up in
> many ways, but it's not even on the same scale as C++. For managed
> C# I can only say "wow"! So many burdens of tiny details lifted!
> What a productivity boost! Add ECO from CapableObjects to that...
> Wheeheee! Here I come!!!

I agree that C++ doesn't help to do things right. The obvious way tends 
to be the wrong way and there are idioms for everything. However, for me 
the choice of programming language very much depends on the context. For 
scripting tasks, my first candidate is always (ba)sh and I need an 
excuse to switch to Ruby, a language I prefer by far.

What brought me back to C++ is that I want to implement a FUSE 
filesystem. I could use Ruby or a number of other scripting languages, 
but my default choice was C. When I considered the datastructures I 
might want to use, C quickly became daunting. So the next best choice 
was C++.

Put more generally, I think C and C++ are appropriate tools for a number 
of tasks. I wouldn't enjoy spending most of my time on these tasks or 
with these tools, but I'd like to be able to handle them. For (desktop) 
application development I don't fancy these languages so much, but when 
you have already decided on a framework/toolkit, the choice of language 
may be more or less gently forced. Overall, I think there are good 
reasons to be acquainted with C++.

Michael

-- 
Michael Schuerig
mailto:[email protected]
http://www.schuerig.de/michael/


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