You made this video just to get drama. No you should not learn C++. Lots of people know it, few companies use it, most are moving away from it, there are better languages if are starting a project. Anyone leaning C++ will only annoy experienced users. Like you said. The first language anyone should learn is python, then Rust or C, then TS or JS. Maybe Bun. Everyone can use Python because there is always some quick little task that you can get done with python in a few minutes that will make any computer users life better.
C++ is Life. People love to jump on the bandwagon of hating a language. But I always quote Bjarne himself "There are only two kinds of languages: the ones people complain about and the ones nobody uses"
@@fr3dlopez it used to be good for cross platform and for android but it got murdered by kotlin and electron. Maybe it can still be used in a server but go and rust are flat out better. Companies that use Java still only do so because it’s too expensive to migrate, Java’s market share is falling each year however
Though C++ is not a strict superset of C, as it is not 100 % compatible with C. Depending on the standard of course, as the latest C and C++ standards try to move to a closer common ground again.
@@retsu-h6460 If C++ was a subset of C, C++ code would be valid C code, which is not the case, it's the opposite. But as mentioned, it's not a 100% superset anymore since C99.
@@theawesomefire: _"Though C++ is ... not 100 % compatible with C."_ I wish I could remember the issue, but years ago I went round and round with another developer because I gave him a few lines of simple C code that I compiled and tested with my C++ compiler. It worked flawlessly for me but he argued that it didn't work for him. When I finally tested it with a C compiler I found he was correct.
I like how people always talk about "which language should you learn" as if we're often given a choice. In my experience, unless you're writing stuff totally from the ground up (or just wading into a new language as a hobby), which language you use is almost always dictated by what software you're developing for, or what your job or school requires you to use.
I wish I would have known that before spending years on low level programming before realizing most relevant jobs will require proficiency in another field
Exactly. and this is why I hate people who push others looking in from outside the industry to only learn a single language like python to start their journey. You gotta learn a lot of things first to narrow down what you wanna go into and then you dive deeply into its requirements.
It's mainly about which language to choose to learn for people that haven't started yet or haven't progressed very far. They'll be training themselves in both programming and the language they choose and that choice partly depends on what work might be available, what they want to do, and what is good at a learner level.
I am currently learning C++. I learned Python, Java and C for my CSE degree. I can say that I prefer C++ over Java because C++ feels more intuitive for me. Of course, I have yet to learn Rust.
@@sotam8938 Well rust isn't really good for jobs, C++ still and will forever have codebases to maintain. C++ isn't horrible the programmers abusing its concepts are thus resulting in its reputation for memory leaks, Try to use smart pointers and keep raw pointers as a last measure.
My first language is C++, i've been exposed to pretty harsh concepts before that make the brain fry. C++ did sure fry my brain the first 3 months; but now that I am starting to understand it more, I really appreciate it and other languages are really easy!
@@Henry-sv3wv Assembly, especially x86 might unironically be simpler than C++ or even C atleast in terms of syntax. it's just more tedious, time consuming and requires a solid understanding of how the CPU registers and memory stack work.
Professional C++ programmer here: The thing is that C++ has a steep learning curve and that most developers just don't want to invest the time to learn the language. Just as you've said: with great power comes great responsibility and rarely anybody wants to be responsible because it is hard. Also C++ is usually taught wrong and rarely do teachers or courses explain that, for example, raw ( C ) pointers are not evil, they just cannot be owning pointers. I agree with your suggestion on how to learn C++, I would just add that after learning C, fammiliarize yourself with the abstractions that the language introduces, by reading books and watching convention lectures. That way you get a bottom up ( learning C and the memory model) and top down (learning abstractions) view of the language. You just need time to understand the language, something that most people do not have today. C++ is not a perfect language, but it does not deserve the hate it gets.
agreed, im not a proffesional neither intermediate of the language but when you dedicate time to the language and actually understand the ins and outs its pretty awesome, the power we have also its a must for anyone wanting to get into malware analysis or Reverse engineering
I tried getting into c++ for a while (currently i use rust) but I'd say c++ more than any language requires you to just "know" things, or at least thats how it feels. Like solid code sometimes just wont work because theres some quirk of the language or compiler or something that just screws with specific implementations that seem like they should work. It feels like to bugfix you need to have a textbook just containing these irregularities of the language itself Also header files confuse me because im kinda dumb but thats just a c thing
I realize this is a month old, but could you by any chance expand a little bit on the idea of "raw pointers are ok so long as they're not owning pointers"?
@@user-sl6gn1ss8p Well, the thing is owning pointers are pointers which manage the lifetime of the object they are pointing to. That means that smart pointers in C++ are owning pointers because they have to destroy the thing they point to at the end of its lifetime. If A owns B, that means that A has to destroy B when the time comes. That means that Non-owning pointers do not manage the lifetime of the object they point to, they just "look" at the object. They don't have any obligation to the thing they point to. That is why raw pointers are "ok" to use in a non-owning scenario. They are great if your function requires a view to the object. Nothing is hindering you to use pointers as you wish, but abrstractions like these are really handy when you have to reason with code that you are unfamilliar with. The purpose of abstractions is to carry intent. I hope that I made it a bit clearer. :)
I wrote C and then C++ for years as an embedded software developer. As the language grew more and more complex, I noticed developers very purposely wrote more and more complex code which took longer and longer to read, trace and understand. Worse, there was a convoluted arrogance that came along with it. If you couldn't understand their extremely convoluted code, you were a lesser person. Few acknowledged that convoluted code was bad code. And discussions about the language replaced abstract discussions about what the compiler and processor would have to do to accomplish something. It became essentially _wrongthink_ to even consider how a compiler would implement code. While I was constantly striving to simplify the organization of data and the processing of it, my coworkers were constantly building empires of more and more complex code to their own glory. They _hated_ me when it got in my way and I simplified it.
@@XenolVlatriX: _"what do you do as a embedded developer?"_ Embedded computers are those with no user interface or a limited interface. The microcontroller in a microwave is the most familiar example. I worked with telephone switchgear, solar controllers and bus communication systems.
Thank you. I work a few million lines of crap above you (web), fighting the complexity demon wherever it decides to come to nest. It's come to be point now where I find myself having discussions with senior engineers over the extreme danger of writing for loops in bounds-checking, memory managed languages, as 'you could get them wrong' and 'they are hard to read'. I would give someone elses arm to write Go on the frontend, anything but JavaScript.
This is my problem as well. As someone often tasked with debugging and tracking down bugs, C++ is hard to work with. C lacks features but that means it's often easily readable with even just grep, and what you read closely matches the actual execution of the program. C++ syntax is made to make people feel smart while writing it but it ends up making the codebase hard to read and maintain.
@@danielsan901998 range-for loop also works on arrays. Furthermore, it doesn't matter that it is syntactic sugar over something. It matters that is a better syntax. Iterators suck because they are verbose and ugly.
@@sledgex9 it does matter that it is syntactic sugar because the point was "avoid sugar", and for-range loops is an example in favor of using syntactic sugar.
@@danielsan901998 IMO, I took it to mean "don't structure your code in a way just to make use of all c++ features". Notice the absence of std::vector in the second example. If I was wrong in my interpretation of his point, then I consider that point a wrong one. Using syntactic sugar that makes things easier to write/read and less bug prone (off-by-one error in for-loop), is a MUST. Otherwise we should avoid lambdas too because they too are syntactic sugar over special structs.
My first language was C++ and I couldn't believe that other languages ain't got the features it has. I remember I was like: so how they do this and that?! Now I know they just don't ;) C++ is the power but only after few brain-aches. I think most of the haters just failed with the language and others are repeating the haters.
I study mechanical engineering, so I'm not a typical programmer, but from my point of view C++ is one of the most important languages. It can be found in any application where speed matters, such as CAD modeling software, physics simulation, or real devices such as microcontrollers, control units, etc.
@@Stumashedpotatoes "uhm ackshually" yeah yeah shut up. It probably STILL can be found in all those projects but indirectly. Rust for example uses LLVM to be compiled and LLVM is programmed in C++.
@@sharoyveduchi my point was that you do not need to write CPP yourself to get the performance of C, by using rust or zig. Buddy you just did the biggest “um actually” I’ve ever seen. You brought up the fact that the compiler is written in cpp. “Umm akshually the compiler is written in cpp so youre still using it even when you’re not”. You gonna tell me Linux is written in C too? Cringe bro, cringe
I agree ... first C and then C++. Working with object required a extra efford like understanding Inherince, poli, object relationships, notation like UML diagram classes a more... great video by.the way 👏👏👏👏
C++ keeps amazing me everytime I have to code with it, New Syntax, New Features. I feel I don't know anything about programming at all everytime when I spending tim with it. Its fry my brain, but I love it.
This systems administrator here, used to safe languages like c#, wanted to learn c++ to get closer to the OS. And man, I can't recommend enough. I got a pretty bad beating from memory management, and the community being fairy aggressive, but this language is powerful. Go for it.
As someone who started with Java, C++ is very rewarding. I get the same OOP and functional features I'm used to plus equally great libraries without the overhead of the JVM. C++ is definitely *not* a "better" C. C is much easier to tinker with and iterate (without worrying about brittle design choices). C++ features and documentation almost always assumes you already know exactly what you want to build before you've written a single line of code. It is the complete opposite of say Python where you are guided towards the correct way of doing things.
Just the feature is worth learning C++ over (or in addition to) C, it's better and safer than C arrays, and there's a lot of other good features. Unfortunately, there's always "more" every three years, every new version is almost like a new language, as so many things get (literally and figuratively) overloaded. Even thought the latest tends to be an improvement (as in "for (auto thing : mythings)"), it still leaves a trail of a half dozen previous ways of doing something.
It is not only about vectors. It is just nice to have a good baseline that allows you as a programmer to comfortably make something. C++ has this nice balance of abstraction, performance and type safety. Well, and then it adds one hundred other features no one uses except that one friend of yours. However, after you get the hang of what you actually need, and treat std::vector with caution and respect, C++ is mega comfy.
This has been one of the most difficult parts of the language while learning. Beginners just get lost with all these standards and once they start learning a new standard comes and basically invents faster and better ways to do things which you'd have to relearn. It changes faster than a lot of people can learn, and these changes can be transformative. It's not just simple things. And tutorials/courses need to be updated too, which is another big problem.
@@greypsyche5255 I would say that you do not need to use all standards, but you can definitely get overwhelmed, by people with their "best practices". Does C++ change fast? Compared to Python and Javascript it is changing really slowly.
honestly, I've used a ton of languages and I still find C++ to be my favorite language. I do use python for a lot of one-off type things that I intend to work on for less than a few hours, but I genuinely find C++ more fun because I can always find a trick to make my code be better.
@@KopieOG your right, finding out that the multi million dollar code base your company developed for 30 years will cost about as much to rewrite to be understood by anyone besides the original writers won't ruin your day, it will ruin your life
@@hodayfa000h if the code is written from scratch you should write it with rust, also it easy to make a python library and only implement in rust the bottlenecks of python
in my opinion the most important thing with using cpp is having guidelines in your project, you can accomplice same thing many different ways in cpp so at the beginning of the project you need to decide how you will design everything. For example In my work we just don't use inheritance or most of stl. I also think that rust will have the same story (both are big languages and things like error handling should be clearly defined)
also what i forgot to mention is that build system can be VERY complex in cpp. I don't have a lot of proffetional experience working with other languages but I don't think that in java or c# properly setting up build system can be so hard (even with cmake)
Good developers makes everything work fluently in any language 🙂 I understand what you mean with guidelines, but you also need some freedom to break the guidelines to find better ways. I see a lot of projects becoming hard to handle because of enforced guidelines. I think within the same project the code should be consistent. But between different projects the consistency can be different depending on the projects need.
Not using STL in 2022 is shooting yourself in the foot from the start; why avoid type and memory safe structures with zero memory and performance overhead?
@@olafbaeyens8955 of course i mean in single project single guildlines, as for flexibility in smaller project it should be fine, personally i work on 5g with hundreds other people so rules are enforce at ci level
I think that C++ does solve some of C's problems as a general purpose programming language (although it's questionable whether C should be used as one in the first place when there are languages like Rust) but it creates even more of them. As such, my "personal style" of C++ is basically C with some extra things about C++ that I like (most notably the standard library).
For me, understanding RAII as a mechanism for letting the compiler safely manage your resource lifetimes was eye opening. It moved me away from this “code in C” style
I learned higher level languages first and C++ before recently learning C. I can tell you, for embedded systems, C is still much preferrable compared to Rust, especially when doing bare metal. C is almost married to embedded systems in a way other languages aren't. And personally, having now learned C, i think for complex systems, it can be a death trap, but it's simplicity also taught me how be efficient as a developer, especially with memory
@@4cps777 Even if this common belief of "C is better for embedded system" is completely false, they are tons of project in C++ and rust for embedded system. Arduino uses C++, ARM dev program libraries are in C++. C is used as a lingua franca so devices drivers are written in C so it can be used for every single languages, that’s all. Once you said that, nothing force you to use C as most languages can use C ABI.
Currently learning C++ (I come form a C# background). Love the language and I think it doesn't deserve the hate it receives. It's powerful, efficient & flexible.
@@hecker230 A good place to start would be a channel called "The Cherno", he offers a wide variety of C++ videos, but you will have to move on to other stuff later since he doesn't cover everything. I also recommend watching some C++ weekly videos from Jason Turner once you get more advanced. (I also recommend you learn C first) *Good luck!*
Cool, I started with Java in uni and then became interested in C# but I’ve always had books about and interest for C++ for it’s efficiency and industry impact. I also like learning about backend development with .NET and C#. I’m having a really hard time deciding which one of these, C++ or C# to learn! I’m interested in topics like graphics, backend web dev, but even then, I have a hard time deciding!
@@erik9817 C++ is so important for your journey as a programmer. Even if you later learn a language unrelated to systems development, C++ gives you great insight into how to make more performant code. Other languages are also much easier after learning C++. Without learning pointers, for example, it can be harder to learn how all the objects connect together in C#. (C# has pointers called references, but they hide them). If you decide to go for a higher level language, try to not depend on a framework (like Unity) to learn the language. Otherwise you will be dependent on the framework and you won't learn how to structure the code on your own. C# is a really good language, but all programmers should learn C or C++ at some point imo to get a better understanding.
I wish I had learned C before C++ (I learned it as a module on my math undergrad), I've gone back to them a little since using OpenCL. Once I get a bit more of a wide overview of what they can do, because I still haven't built that much with them, and once I have looked into assembly and mixing all three, then I think I will finally let go and probably leave them for something like rust... but I want the context first.
About C++ security, I think most of the common problems that Rust solved, C++ already did too. The "problem" is that while in Rust they're there by default (and you can't escape it), in C++ they're opt-in (but highly encouraged by the community) features or patterns like smart pointers, RAII, etc. Smart pointers are, in practice, C++ ownership system. C++ has a legacy of 30+ years, so a lot of legacy code and "legacy programmers" still use the old verbose, unsafe patterns, it's also the style teached at most universities (remember folks, professors usually don't stay up to date with the industry or language features). But I see a lot of effort by the community to enforce these new patterns and document them. For beginners it's a challenge to soak up and distinguish so much legacy knowledge together with the new knowledge. But I'm having a lot of fun in my journey.
I think C++ is going in the correct direction with safety. Though they will never get as far as Rust. The main things that still bug me when working on C++ is threads safety and lifetimes. Companies I have worked with have flat out ban threading because it just causes so many bugs in what needs to be a safe system. Lifetimes are just never explicit in C++ you just have to hope things are documented well. C++ is not bad but it has years of issues that cannot be fixed.
@@dynfoxx I think the threading issue is due to the not explicit (bad) lifetimes in c++. The first time I managed to get UB in an actual project was because some undocumented behavior in a library causing a pointer to that was required to become invalid. It took me days to figure it out because I checked if it was valid the line before I passed it. Multi threading itself is not that difficult, but using it efficiently usually means there are a lot of side-effects that become hard to keep track of. But if you have some expensive algorithm iterating over a lot of "uncoupled" data, it is not that hard.
@@someonespotatohmm9513 it's not that hard in theory. But when C++ gives you no help and it's up to documentation that may or may not be followed it gets to be a problem. The fact that programs don't know atomic, volatile and shared pointer safety just gets annoying. Half of the issue is that you can do it right but it's just hard to keep right. If I am not careful some other person will come mess it up. They need owning mutates like rust has. It makes it more clear to start with. Though it will never be fixed it more so comes down to your code base and fellow engineers.
Short overview of Modula 3 and Ada gives an idea that Rust solved the problem which was solved long time ago, just not in world of C-family languages. Yes, it needed few decades to catch up, but better ever than never.
I think the amount of control c++ gives is double edged sword, but I like it. On one hand, you sometimes have to write a lot of lines of code to do something that other languages would allow with just a few, or sometimes even out of the box. On the other hand, though, I feel I'm in control and it's ultimately up to me to decide what a piece of code will do down to the really fine details. With some other languages it felt like someone took the steering wheel from me and just said "don't worry, I'll handle it" while blindfolding me.
I totally agree. I have the same feeling. I'd prefer be in control then to just have "trust me, bro" experience when I'm trying to worth with technology.
The first programming language I ever learned was IBM 360/370 Macro Assembler which is actually rather high-level as far as assembly languages go. They thought we should learn this before moving on to COBOL and CICS. Also, AL was the "washout" class. If you can't handle that you don't belong here. When a friend of mine was in the same program years later he asked me what he should learn after AL. I suggested C because it was the new hotness, the syntaxes of many other languages are similar and it's still low-level enough to let you do whatever you want. It's a good baseline. I've since learned that you can also do object-oriented programming in C using pointers to structures of pointers, but that makes my head hurt almost as much as the SmallTalk-style objects in Objective-C. So much is already written and can be written in C++ that it makes sense to know it. But while it's relatively easy to know C, if not always the best ways to use it, it's pretty impossible to know all of C++, much less how to use it well. C++ is a Very Complex language, though still low-level enough to be one of the fastest languages out there. Rust is more trouble than it is worth. I prefer Swift. It feels much more natural to me. But still, many device drivers are still written in C++ or even C so it's worthwhile to know them.
If you are an engineer and plan to do anything related to software within engineering learning c++ is a must. Of course C is also important, but so much engineering work is done in C++. C is good for doing operating system related stuff and embedded systems.
Learning C first will tend to lead a developer towards a C-like C++ style. This tends to defeat the purpose of C++; See Kate Gregory's talk "Stop Teaching C". Avoiding sugar is also not the best approach, and in fact the range for loop over a std::vector generates less assembly instructions than using a traditional loop variable. You can prove this in Compiler Explorer with -O3 and is mentioned in Bjarne's book A Tour of C++ 3rd Edition. This makes some sugar in C++ what Jason Turner calls a "negative cost abstraction". Also "near zero cost" is not quite right. The language design involves what they call the Zero Overhead Principle, which is often misunderstood. This means not that there is actually zero overhead in using an abstraction, but that if you implemented it manually by hand using only C or assembly, you wouldn't be able to do better. At least, that's the goal...I won't go into how exceptions allocating and Run Time Type Identification are clearly in violation of this.
C++ is and will likely always remain my main language, and the unique features of C++ can be quite beautiful in some cases. I have been working with the QEngine library for simulation and optimization of quantum physics, and it makes extensive use of templates and operator overloading to allow me to essentially create a Potential or Hamiltonian (a kind of functions which tells us how a Quantum system evolves) as a C++ object, by literally writing it as an equation. But I absolutely agree, if you try to use "advanced" c++ features where normal C would do the jop it gets messy very quickly, and the error messages are not great, especially when templates are involved. I routinely get single error messages so long that they can not fit in my terminal.
@@JacksonNick-j6i Yes, initially the compiler for C++ was written in the C language, but when the compiler reached a certain level of development, it was used to further compile new compilers for C++ and for further development of the C++ language by writing new language functions in C++ itself.That process of writing a compiler in a compiler of the same language is called bootstrapping.
@@JacksonNick-j6i Yes, initially the compiler for C++ was written in the C language, but when the compiler reached a certain level of development, it was used to further compile new compilers for C++ and for further development of the C++ language by writing new language functions in C++ itself. That process of writing a compiler in a compiler of the same language is called bootstrapping
@@JacksonNick-j6i I think all major compilers are mostly C++ for some time now. But yeah, there is sooo much C out there that is essential to so many things. And Bjarne's first C++ compiler implementation CFront compiled C++ to C, though itself written in C++ apparently (just reading wikipedia now :) )
C++ was my first language and I am so happy that it was that way. It forces you to learn about the fundamentals so that you understand what is happening with code under the hood. Also, it has the best syntax. No scope by indentation and it is precompiled.
I have seen C++ being abused in embedded, especially using OOP patterns for every problem. Instead of making systems easier to understand, codebase grows ridiculously. Off course there is a sense to choose C++ for some solutions, but in firmware development I follow my philosophy of 'staying with C if I can'.
goto spaghetti is anathema to programming, drop down coupling is pure miscegenation of coding. DRY? if repeating is the root of all evil (silly uncle bob) then i am WET because virtual is infinite.
I worked in C for about 2 years in total and about 1 year in C++, and while both languages can be pains in the ass in their own ways, C++ was way more convoluted, unintuitive and tedious to work with in my experience. High-level, near-zero cost abstractions sound good but unless you can somehow solve memory safety without GC, you're building on sand. C++ couldn't quite achieve that, though many of its features and libraries are undeniably an improvement over C. Rust managed to do decades later what C++ couldn't back then. In conclusion, I wouldn't use C++ for any new project anymore unless I had no choice, like an Unreal game or a Qt application, though I wouldn't be surprised if both already have viable bindings in other languages.
Is a viable opinion. I definitely would never say that Rust managed what C++ could not though. Also, building on sand is literally what you are doing in C, since your constructs are build with premium quality TNT raw pointers waiting to collapse
Should one learn C++? Only if one is interested in becoming a serious programmer… and no language is perfect ;) people will like/dislike what they will. This video has excellent advice! Thanks for making it
I think C++ is very underrated. IMHO it's the best programming language that I know and I know more than 10 reasonably well. Its STL is a game changer for algorithmic programming. It's the best for competitive programming and makes you understand so many things much better. Maybe not everything should be written in C++ though. I use typescript and java on a daily basis but learning C++ fully made me understand so much more.
I agree it's underrated. If I had to pick one language to be the most versatile, C++ is it. But it's terrible for some applications - web apps and data science for example.
C++ is astounding!! I am an embedded software developer who always used C and then from last 3 years have been coding in C++ and trust me 2 out these 3 years have been spent sometimes hating the langauge, sometimes pulling my hair out and sometimes acknowledging that things are way better in C++. And now I am at peace that this langauge is FANTASTIC, especially modern C++ i.e. C++ 11 and later. Its a huge language, I dont even know 50% of it BUT that's the beauty, its not supposed to be learned completely and I dont know if its really possible.
For me it's that none of the features seem to mesh well together. They all seem separated and still in a first revision state. It just feels unfinished for some reason.
this video is old but I'm a professional c++ programmer. I basically use C++ as a C plus the basic features I need. Once you can manage memory it's amazing what you can do. I try to not use too many different features so that my code remains very easy to read. that is crucial for me. I also program in c# and I love it but just where I don't have to push performance and memory management.
I heard it was efficient, so when I finally decided to learn a programming language, I picked that one. Bad, bad idea, but it's working out ok so far, I got the basic syntax after just about 20 hours of online courses and it feels intuitive enough to use. Can recommend.
@@User948Z7Z-w7n Nowhere near as far as I should've in a year, sadly, but I'm still having fun with it. Not aiming for a career, so it's not a sprint to me, more of a leisurely stroll lol.
@@Doki_Natsuki About whether it's worth your time? idk, I'm not in the industry, I just play around with it and it's hard and very verbose, so only worth it if you think that's fun.
Learning both C and C++ for embedded systems in school. The question of which one was better came up and my teacher told us: "Mix and match. If you prefer something in C use it, if you prefer something in C++ use that instead. If it works, it's already a great stepping stone to see which one you'll prefer".
I find it really funny how some Rust and some C people hate C++ for exactly the opposite reasons. One side likes safeguards and the other wants the manual memory management. It’s how I know the C++ hate is overblown; if different people contradict each other on why it’s bad, then you know it’s mostly just a hate bandwagon. Feature creep & not being the most safe language ever aren’t crimes in my book. C++’s only crime is not being radical enough - it’s way too loose and lenient for some people but simultaneously too restrictive and abstract for others. It’s a very misunderstood language that I will never not love.
C++ has some unique features that I like. Templates are one of them. I was caught really off-guard when I was writing some C# and learned that generics had only a fraction of the flexibility
I'm a math and CS student. I've studied various languages such as Python, R, Bash, VBA, etc. When I first encountered C++, it intimidated me. Pointers were difficult to grasp, but at times, I found myself enjoying C++. When I contemplate computers or programs, my thoughts are expressed in C++.. Their power and elegance make me inclined towards C++. I'm young and still have a lot to learn, but I aspire to become a professional in C++. I don't exactly know why. Perhaps it's because C++ is elegant. Perhaps because my mind operates in C++.
Nice comment! I feel that I have a hard time deciding between focusing on C++ and C#. I've spent some time learning C# but C++ has always been in the background, I was also intimidated at first, but I bought books about it several years ago.
I can relate to this. My mind needs to have a deep understanding of how things work. When computers were simpler, I understood them at hardware level. You also need a hardware level understanding to effectively program microcontrollers. C and C++ are "close to the machine" and just suit the way my brain works. It's hard to explain exactly what that means to someone who doesn't think that way, but I completely understand what you're saying.
I've been learning C++ for low level modding. It's been mostly fun, but god I hate having to maintain header files. That's worse than any confusing features.
Started using C++ way back before 'templates'. lol I agree that 'forcing' yourself to use some of the 'sugar' as you called it is a burden. There are times when it's just so much simpler to use 'printf' instead of all the 'cout
i basically taught myself C++ and when starting college i took a class on it to further increase my skill, and its by far one of my favorite languages right now I basically use it as if it was C with bonus features (as how I personally feel it should be) I frequently mix the syntax where I see fit, using malloc for simple things like making a block of data to copy from a file into, and making a class or struct when I need something more complicated (specifically talking about C++ structs here) Its definitely not the best practice, but im just working on my own personal projects here, so its not like anyone other than me is going to be seeing it lmao
There's no reason to use malloc in C++ instead of new. Sometimes you may want to dynamically allocate a class that has a constructor, in which case new is the only way to do it properly. And using two different constructs to allocate memory throughout your program just adds mental overhead, instead of reducing it
I wish I could have been a 90s game programmer. When I was a kid I tried learning C++ a few times, it was this mystically fascinating thing that was used to make every game that I loved at the time, needing to know chip architecture, incredibly complex syntax, that rewarding feeling when you get it to work, no AI assistants to help you just manuals....just wish I could have been part of that. What I would give to be a programmer on a game like Rise of Nations or Battlefield 1942 or console games at the time, or better yet a mainstream 90s adventure game or a Lucas Arts game, or even just Windows 9x software, or a Saturn or Playstation game...Now what do we have? Overabstracted javascript, python, ruby, annoying slow scripting languages, everything needs to be mobile and everything needs to be cross platform all at the same time. We have these annoying leetcode tests at these companies, yet it used to be that you actually had to be smart with working directly with the chips.
Before I learned how to program, I started out learning and designing CPU architectures 4 years ago when I was 13 years old. I find that understanding how CPUs works to the logic level really helps with programing (And understanding pointers).
I have used a lot of C++ for developing a video game engine. I can confidently say that C++ templates are Witchcraft. Remember: they are NOT the same as generics, which you would see in higher level languages, even though they look similar on the surface.A templated function is NOT a single function that takes a variety of arguments; it is a meta-function which generates multiple, isolated functions during compilation, with different memory locations.
The C++ standards committee is highly focused on making the language simpler and safer.. having an understanding of core facilities makes it mostly a pleasure to use in my experience. I cackle at those who say they just write c++ like c.. that indicates no effort to use it as intended.
I've been studying it in college as most CS majors do and personally I found it to be a good language for learning low level programming as there are endless amounts of learning materials for it. The issue I have with it is the security risk that memory issues in the language has for actual production code. Rust and Carbon will probably finally cause C++ to become a legacy language like Colbol or Fortran. C++ is worth learning for now until Rust becomes the defacto low level systems language due to it being memory safe. Right more there are still a ton of C++ projects that need developers for them so if students learn it now, they can transition later.
About C++ security, I think most of the common problems that Rust solved, C++ already did too. The problem is that while in Rust they're there by default (and you can't escape it), in C++ they're opt-in (but highly encouraged by the community) features or patterns, like smart pointers, RAII, ETC. Smart pointers are, in practice, C++ ownership system. C++ has a legacy of 30+ years, so a lot of legacy code and "legacy programmers" still use the old verbose, unsafe patterns.
I don't really think c++ will go away any time soon, since, at least on embedded devices, space is low and while a hello world in c++ or c takes up 20 kb or so, rust's hello world requires over 500 kb.
@@shimadabr finally somebody said it! Really when it boils down to it, Rust is better for new developers whereas C++ is more oriented toward experienced developers and toward more complex software. The industry only keeps programmers for about 4 years max (especially web) so it’s no wonder Rust is a major push right now. Rust is just safe C.
Taking the char * example given in this video, I do agree it's use is frowned upon except in the specific case of cross-platform messaging (where you want to guarantee no compiler dependent behavior/sizing, which even std::string doesn't provide across platforms/compilers); use of std::string is *much* preferred in all cases because it's a proper object, with all the features and protections that come along with it. The issues I come across with C++ are typically one of the following: 1: The fact the feature set is so robust turns people off, because there's multiple ways to accomplish the same task. Example: Iterating over the range of an object; the *old* way would be a FOR loop using the start/end values and in iterator, but you now have ranged-based FOR loops (as of C++11) that do the same thing in an easier syntax. 2: Thinking of C++ as "C with Classes" and not taking advantage of the fact C++ is (mostly) an object-oriented language. 3: Trying to use C++ in a role another language can do better. Need a simple GUI o n Windows? Use C# (even I hate C++ Message Maps). Simple console app? Just use C. And so on.
It is not just about classes and objects. Todays C++ standard library provides many useful features such as algorithms, threading, file system and much, much more. You don't have to reinvent a wheel and it is really fast. Even memory allocations if done right, you dont need to worry about releasing memory. Though you need to know how templates work :)
currently attending at full sail for game development and trying to learn this was a bigger bite than i could grasp then all the rules against using ai for help or using the built in tools or using an outside source just overwhelmed me more
A lot of the code shown here is very dated, such as using begin() and end() to construct for-loops instead of range based, as one example. Compiling errors have come somewhat further, too. If you're stuck coding in a C++11 application, then fine, but it's over a decade old in a language that sees major adjustments every 3 years. Sadly, the main point almost applies MORE to modern C++, imo, so I guess it's a moot point...
Valuable info as usual, thank you my friend, useful info from an experienced engineer is as good, if not better, than a proper engineering book. love your insights, I am currently learning C++, I just finished C. Also learning Python.
I graduated on telecommunications, so I've seen c and c++ while studying. Then, in my first job (2015), I started working with JS (for a small part of my tasks), until I decided to learn it all the way (2019). Did a lot of courses on webdev and JS and switched jobs to full time web developer (mostly backend, though). Then I started learning Rust, and that made me see how much of a toy language JS can be (although I do still love it). And now I'm learning c++ (I forgot practically everything from university) to help a friend in a project of his. And, to be honest, I am considering learning also c right after finishing with the exercises in exercism and probably checking out your c course.
I love C++ for it's aesthetics, python looks oversimplified in this way. You feel exactly what your program will do, it's pretty useful. It may be hard to understand memory, pointers, addresses, but it's worth it.
I think error messages from a C++ compiler is just to complicated. And dont say ”just learn it”, this is what I think: the error messages are to complicated. I got a lot of C++ books, I read them, I still don’t use C++. I happily use C or Java, even C# or Javascript. If a library has a C++ or a C API, I use the C API every single time.
C++ is a great language for a lot of things. Their binary compatebility makes it the only option next to some C compilers for basically every industry where safety & security really matters. C++ is an awesome language if you know what you are doing and want to design a close to perfect system. C++ is a terrible language if you still need to fugure out what you are doing, develop along debugging and if you want to do everything all at once. Even if the language is highly capable of doing way to much in one line. C++ also requires the same people working on the same project for a long period to some extend. Like 20+years. It's also quite hard to jump in a running C++ project, regardless the experience, as features and style can differ quite a lot. I don't see C++ leaving any low level hardware, robotics, high-performance compute anytime soon.
C++ is awesome, its std:: library that is bloated and bad. Zero cost abstractions, OOP, overloading of operators, auto, quality of life stuff (default function overloads). I use it all the time on my embedded stuff, it's just great if used properly (basically as C with good stuff).
C++ is my favorite language. I also know C, C#, Python and couple more obscure ones. I like C++ for multiple reasons. It's deterministic unlike others; no hidden background operations like garbage collectors, it's low level when I need it and scales up to high level when I want stuff done, it's still the fastest language around when used properly, and I like its templates a lot. C++ has been evolving massively in the past 10 years making it faster and easier to use. The cons are that it comes with a lot of history.
Exactly, well said. People really taking away the low-level part and cry about the language because they come from languages like python and expect to breeze through it. C++ teaches you things you would never learn as a person who works only with very high-level languages, it really teaches you good programming practices, how the compiler works, OOP and just how to optimize your code
@@Dulge Thanks. Though I don't think C++ teaches good coding practices more than other languages either, or i didn't understand what you're saying. C# for example, does things differently but is pretty well structured. C++ is actually pretty relaxed in comparison to Rust. If people think C++ is hard then I do think C++ has problems in accessibility. I don't think it should be hard to use. C++ also has problems with usability. Eg. Static reflection...
@@noxagonal Yeah, i feel like the "hard" aspect is there for a reason however, if C++ was easy and we didn't need to do extra steps or have to understand pointers, references, OOP, virtual functions, inheritance, polymorphism and just a bunch of rules the language has then it wouldn't be powerful and used in nearly every engine, library or wherever programs and embedded systems need that performance and power
@@noxagonal As for the Rust being harder i personally would disagree, I think learning rust as a person familiar with another language makes it harder to learn then for a person who is brand new to programming because the way rust is. Mainly because of the legacy aspect C++ and most languages follow
@Dulge I probably shouldn't talk about Rust as I haven't used it on any actual project yet. I think we're approaching this from different perspectives. For example, if you try to use iterators in C++98 vs. C++20, you'll see what I mean. I think some basic knowledge about hardware is necessary in any compiled language, but even then, much of it could be abstracted in language level so that it still performs good. I think C++ could use a complete second standard library altogether, as complete as the current stl but without the history. Most game engines use stl minimally because it's ill suited for game development, though better nowadays, there are still many reasons to not use it. Easier, in this case, would be to have better utilities that we wouldn't need to write our own.
I started off with C++ first, followed by some lua for game script files, then to a bit of C, followed by Python and GdScript (which combines best of both C++ and Python). Now I am learning 8 bit Assembly... so I can improve my understanding of memory in C/C++.
When you start learning c/c++ you would start to learn how computers works, you would get an intuition. But with other languages they treat computers as black boxes, like don't even dare to look into it.
im a Swift developer, ex Obj-C / PHP / ActionScript etc... and to me C++ is awesome. i did some games in the past with it.. its crazy fast. ridiculous how many particles i could simulate with it without dropping framerate (just software rendering)
If your boss tell you to use C++ or get fired, use C++. If it's your own project and you comfortable with (your choice), use whatever you like. They are tools to get job done. That's it.
C++ was always slow for me. Until I got the ownership and moving semantics and verbiage down. I knew about this functionality, I wrote it in C functions all the time.. but it took me forever to figure out how to do it in C++. C++11 and boost, I think is one of the greatest language standards around.
What would you recommend before learning Rust? Is learning C before Rust a good idea? Asking because I'm interested in learning Rust, seems like you can build some really cool stuff with it, and I'm familiar with C but only the very basics (basically what's covered in CS50). Otherwise I'm pretty comfortable coding in any high-level scripting language (JS, Python, Ruby, PHP, etc).
IMO if you've properly messed around with memory and know how you can really mess up without being careful with memory, then you can try learning Rust, you'll then appreciate what it tries to solve. So you're good. Try learning it
You can definitely jump in as you are right now, I was only marginally familiar with Python and Javascript when I started learning Rust (like ~5 months ago) and it's already my most comfortable and also favorite language to work in! Start reading through the book and don't give up when things get confusing! Rust has some concepts like lifetime annotations which won't be familiar to almost anyone at first but if you can push past those and the other low-level concepts that are new to you then you'll have access to one of the most pleasant languages to use imo, considering what it can offer.
If you start out programming I would say rust because of the shooting yourself in the foot thing. If you are going to use it, whichever one best fits your purpose. The biggest difference between the 3 are the language features and syntax anyway.
Learning C will only hamper learning Rust. You can easily write in C++ as if it was C. If you try the same in Rust(and you will if you learn C first), borrow checker will crush you.
Working with C++, also before beeing software developer. Never learned so much about computing and computing language then with C++ and C++ is fast und used in many applications. So yes, learn C++, its worth it
I love C++, have been using for 10 years now and it is still my favorite language, but I get the feeling that some new features just feel "slapped on" and the language itself just kinda feels "outdated", like most features just get layered on top as an afterthought, which makes the syntax more confusing over the years.
Mind giving an example? I can’t think of something that actively hurts readability other than templates and SFINAE - the latter of which is getting replaced with concepts (an evolution, not a devolution).
C++ was actually the first language I've learned in a computer engineering course and in my opinion, it was better than learning C first. The way that it was taught to us was with the heavy use of STL where you have things that you will find in a more high level languages and because we weren't allowed to use pointers in our assignments, it was somewhat difficult to shot ourselves in the foot. We have of course later been introduced to raw pointers and stuff, and as a result, when needed for programming microcontrollers and stuff, I had kinda knew C already and stuff like Java and Python was really easy to understand since C++ has everything. But yeah, learning and using it for my personal projects (e.g. using it without an OS and having to reimplement some of the standard library), it has now become a never ending rabbit hole of getting to know everything that the language has to offer. Also, C++ is not a superset of C in all, but a language which is 'mostly compatible' since it has a different linking and starting with C99, C has things that are not supported in C++, like designated initializers, some keywords and probably other stuff that I don't know about.
2:40 "Do not learn this as first language" Meanwhile my college proceeded to teach that in our programming 1 course, a course meant for people with little to no background in programming
Well said, C++ is not a bad language it just gives a great toolset to easily write bad code. Although i gotta disagree partially, because writing high level abstractions may cost a little performance at times, but if used well can at least in my opinion greatly help the code to be easier to refactor later on.
I heard different opinion. Learn C++ separately from C, and learn it as a high-level language like Java. So without raw pointers but with stdlib. So it will be much more gentle learning curve.
Whoever told you that, gave you bad advice. If you were even able to learn that way at all, that would be the best way to learn to write bad code, by not understanding how anything actually works. You don't need to learn to master it, but spend even just 1 or 2 months learning C first, and you'll at least understand the basics of how things work under the hood in C++. It'll save you a lot of time, headache, and trouble down the road, and make the learning process in C++ far, far easier.
@@nunyobiznez875 I think that advice comes from Bjarne himself. Check his lecture "Learning and Teaching Modern C++" from CppCon. Also good lecture "Stop Teaching C" from Kate Gregory
@@Airatgl I know Bjarne is the original source, though many repeat it. I've read him make similar statements in Programming Practices and Principles. It's still terrible advice, but coming from him, you at least know his motivation. He wants people to use C++ and not C. It's also been a very, very long time since he was a beginning programmer, and he's never even been a beginner looking in on C++ for the first time. I can tell you from experience, that it's the worst programming advice I ever received. Had I not gone and learned C, I would have never even have learned C++, because I would have probably given up on it long before. After learning C, I was able to focus directly on C++'s unique features, since I already knew all of the basic stuff. It made it so much easier. I can't even put into words, just how much easier it was. I was also able to come into it, with full understanding of how things were working under the hood, or at least a very good idea of what was going on, which makes it easier to use the tools correctly, and avoid common mistakes. It was a significant advantage having that knowledge at the start. Not to mention, I had a greater appreciation for the convenience features, since I knew what was actually being done for me. But to each their own. You are free to do as you like. I can only tell you that I heard both advice, and to some extent, I put both into practice personally. I think it's terrible advice to tell someone to start with C++, without at least learning C first. Fortunately, I was also lucky enough to have heard someone else's bad experiences of trying to hop over C right into C++ as well though too, who also advised it's much easier to start with C and wished they had done that. So, it saved me a lot of headache. I'll also point out, that every University CS course that I've seen, also starts with C, long before any talk of C++. There may be some out there I haven't seen, but I'm not aware of any. This is only one University Professor, but here's a CS Professor at Clemson University, explaining some reasons why he uses C for beginners, and not C++: ua-cam.com/video/KGFOLJiIo1g/v-deo.html and: ua-cam.com/video/BIht65Xu1jI/v-deo.html
My introduction to computer programming in school was Visual Basic 4 in year 1 and then C++ in year 2. Granted this was the late 90s, but it was still a trial by fire and a lot of unlearning in the years after. I still like C++ though.
I agree, c++ is awesome. You get the low level control of C, the feature richness of python and in some cases even syntactic sugar that is close to as readable as python (like range based for loops and structured bindings), but all this feature richness makes it quite hard to learn. And template errors are an absolute nightmare to read and fix. I would argue that they code alleviate a lot of the pain by improving the readability what the compiler spits out when you messed some template code, or use of a template library up.
You described the same problem people have with Unreal Engine It just throws every single feature at you and makes it harder to learn, whilst Unity is a lot more simple to start learning
@@tuluppampam yeah the main issue is that idiomatic, modern c++ requires you to use use many advanced features of c++. In order to actually understand them it's best to learn old school C++ first and then move on to the modern features, because the necessity for modern c++ only becomes apparent when you understand the problem with old school c++. The issue I see here is that many people in the c++ community are quite toxic when it comes to newbies not using "the idiomatic way" of implementing something.
I don't think people have to learn C first. As a starting language, I think C++ contains a much simpler language trying to break free, chained down by legacy. I feel we scare away people from it by spooking them with scary concepts like pointers, references and memory safety. As though that is something exclusive to C/C++. If I were to introduce someone to programming through C++, I wouldn't teach them about raw memory allocation. No pointers, pointers to pointers, or even references. Reduce the friction between them and their code until it becomes relevant to understand the more core concepts. Let them pass variables by copy while they're learning. Move semantics have reduced the overhead of that dramatically. Let them return copies, they don't have to understand copy elision or NRVO. You don't teach someone java or C# by telling them how to appease the garbage collector. It's naive, yes. But even basic things in C can appear arcane. Take the supposedly safe "sprintf" - lovely name. You need to understand stack vs heap allocation, when to alloc/free. null terminators, the caveats of the sprintf family of functions, the 'safe' versions of them, what that strange 'restrict' keyword means, etc. Of course, there are nice, basic, declarative examples like adding strings together, which while basic, lets beginners appreciate how that happens under the hood.
Though, as a C++ developer, definitively try pure C at some point. There are a bunch of things you can learn to appreciate from it. It'll make you a better C++ developer for sure. Junior me's mind was blown realizing you could hide details in translation units. Or how often all you needed was some fixed size buffer/variable allocated on the stack.
Greetings! I want to learn programming basics, final goal being able to develop my own tools in cibersecurity (malware analysis/development). I have roughly two years to dedicate to learn the basics, programming included. Could I ask for your opinion on how to structure a complete beginner study guide for not only programming in general but doing it in c++? What resources would you use? Any input is appreciated from an experienced and advanced user. Later on I will need python for automation, c#, powershell... But I could use a direction from zero level. Thank you in advance, sir
Don't you worry, I know what I'm talking about, and I know very well what you're talking about as well. I'm omitting parts to make a point. Details that also shouldn't matter to beginners. It's hardly a perfect language and never did I suggest it was. More experienced people are free to take educated decisions, and provide good reasoning for it. When it comes teaching people programming, I wouldn't say Ada would be my first pick.
Agreed, however I think the perception of pointers is they are somehow complicated, but they are not, its just a variable that holds the memory address to a value, to get the value you have to dereference the pointer first using * or -> and that's mostly it. To allocate a pointer you can use the new keyword, and to delete it delete. You don't delete it then it will stay in memory. When I have mentored beginners they picked this up quickly so I have no doubt someone with an aptitude for programming won't struggle too much then, once they are comfortable with that introduce them to smart pointers and tell them never to use raw pointers again lmao
Although having to invest in assets much more, I drafted to learn Unity instead of UE just to avoid C++. Maybe if one day Epic switch UE's language to Verse, I can give another shot.
I am in the process of learning both C and C++. My limited observation so far is that one really needs to understand the limitations of C++ when it comes to embedded. I do like some of the features found in algorithm. On the other hand, having so many different ways just to initialize a variable in C++ is just one example of how the whole system is creaking under the weight of backward compatibility.
"C is what you get when you almost always say no to adding something to the language. C++ is what you get when you almost always say yes to adding something to the language "
@@0xTas : Oh? Then why does it still use symbols to declare pointers? That was an _experiment_ when C did it, and it hasn't turned out to be a great idea.
I usually code in Java/angular/R because of my job, but most of my personal projects are in c++, it's a wonderful languaje, and one that i would't like to forget
Man... C++ was my first programming language at college and even haven't saw the C programming language first! I always knew that learn C before C++ was the right way, but I saw less than the very basics because was only one semester.
My main issue with C++ (although I have only played around in it to try and mod games) is that I mainly learned to program in Python and I really take line 14 (and 15 lol) of the Zen to heart, while C++ just has too many parallel ways to do something. It is not obvious which way to use, and it seems that in the same code (e.g. the same game) different developers will use different ways to do essentially the same. Oh, and I have seen an open source software that both had a custom class Color and imported QColor, and mostly used QColor for colors that could update (user settings) and Color for fixed color, but there were exceptions. Why?!
I think whatever language attempts to have such a broad scope as C++ while offering the same level of control and performance will end up similarly complex :) As a game developer and low-level systems programmer I've used C++ all my life. The modern versions are actually quite good, you can pick a subset of the language that's basically C#. However I like the ability to "bend the rules" if the situation calls for it.
You gotta understand that this is a very prolific and well-proven language. God knows how many machines, complicated infrastructures, embedded systems, compilers, operating systems as well as high-level systems are running on C++ at the moment. Probably billions. Does it have its problems? Yes, of course. Like any other language; C is so simple but it has very limiting features so you have to implement everything by yourself, python is so slow for performance critic systems, rust's compiler is so tight and it is hard to write rust code, etc. But these languages are also great and well-proven languages. So don't be biased like "Oh C++ sucks it is for egoist and narcissist people" it's just not the case. Use whatever language fits best for your project.
C++ is a useful language, no doubt, and it has some features that I really like. But C++ may very well have terminal flaws now as well, that are growing. I think it may be going a bit far to say it's a "well proven language". It may have been well proven before 2011, but it's a dramatically changing language now. The thing I hate most about C++, and what I see as it's biggest flaw, is all of the redundant bloat and inconsistencies in the language, which only continues to grow exponentially. The language bloat is practically doubling in size, about every 3 years now, with no signs of slowing down. It's already like a 7-headed hydra, or more like a 7-headed python-hydra hybrid. How long before it's an usable mess, and new users aren't even able to learn the language? I don't know, but I do know that the current rate of growth isn't sustainable, and the people responsible for it, don't even seem to notice there's a problem. Just my two cents. I'm certain there are some who would disagree.
@@nunyobiznez875 I agree C++ has a lot of features, some may say unnecessarily much that makes the language very complex. But the good news is you can always use a subset of C++ that you need, and you can always only use the features you think are useful. For example, if you don't like templates, don't use them. If you don't like functional programming features, fine, don't use them. And another good news is C++ is back-compatible (generally), so if C++11 is your style, you can use it. What I'm saying is, it is obvious that the language has some problems, but I can always find a lot of other problems in any given language. So these "Stop using C++" kinds of things are really overreactions.
@@kerim7158 I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with C++, but just to be clear, I'm not saying people should stop using it, nor am I trying to overstate the case. The language has a lot of merits as well, but I'm guessing you're already well aware of them. I'm only stating concern, and it's mostly concern for the future of the language. But I do think this problem is a major contributing factor to a lot of the "Stop using C++" rhetoric, and as the problem grows, so to are the calls likely to grow. Your advice is good though, and it's mostly what I do. But avoiding features can only take a person so far as well, when needing to interface with someone else's code. So, I tend to try to adapt to the changes, even if I don't like all of them. But it can be a lot to keep up with. The solution really is just for the ISO board to be more thoughtful and careful with the language updates though, instead of throwing everything at the wall and seeing what sticks, then needing to release more features just to fix the mistakes and stuff that didn't quite work. Especially, since once it's in, stuff almost never gets removed. But, as I said, I really don't see the updates slowing down. I think they're overly concerned about being outdone by some shiny new feature in some other language though, and are paranoid of C++ being left behind. But maybe I'm wrong, and they have some other goal for continuing to bloat up the language.
There are several features of C++ that I like, however, it can also be greatly abused. I use C or C++ depending on the application being implemented. I like C++ function overloading when implementing applications that will grow over time. But for embedded systems, C is more straight forward, has a smaller footprint, and is better for programming down the the bare metal. For web apps, accounting apps, etc, C++ is a better fit. Choosing C vs C++ is also depending on if you're writing your own apps completely standalone, or, if you will be interfacing to 3rd party libraries. Sometimes you don't have luxury to choose, depending the environment you're working in. Unless you are the boss, you may be required to work in C, C++, Python, etc, etc. If you're looking for work or a career in some field, the more languages you learn, the more job possibilities there will be.
From doing a personal projects (around 100,000 lines+ of code) using C++, C, Java, TypeScript/Javascript, and ObjectiveC, I truly think c++, Java, or ObjectiveC are the best languages simply because they all offer near zero cost for abstractions. For example, when I was writing TS in ReactNative I wrote a lot of classes and abstractions, but the performance gets worse and worse to the point a cold start takes more than 10 seconds, which I just recently found out TS doesn’t “compile” to js but simply translates to js. I was expecting TS can “unroll” the classes to js. This causes the project to get extremely bloated since you have to write as much logic into the same file as possible to preserve performance. I am not very experienced with javascript, but this property alone makes me dread writing any js. In C++, you can write pure C style, zero class projects; or, you can write completely object oriented project. Both styles will give you the same performance (some times the oop style will give you a better performance due to the -O2 level optimization the compiler can re-reference the class structures to decrease binary size, but C style code doesn’t have that information). I personally think oop offers clearer abstractions while writing code, and in the long run make the project scale a lot easier. That’s why I personally prefer it. However, I think anyone who can proficiently write C style code should NOT switch to C++. If you can write scalable C code, C++ definitely offers little value for you. Even so, I recommend anyone who is starting programming to start with C++ or Java, because these languages helps you to learn about structuring a project that can be scaled from the start. And you can switch to C style languages at a later date without any trouble.
I've found Java weird to learn as a first language as I couldn't understand why I had to use classes and objects even for simple operations (I started with codecademy so it might be a problem with the site) Then having methods instead of functions felt even weirder (it took me a long time to figure out how to use them) I feel like Java is somewhat less intuitive then a more functional language, but that maybe depends on experience
@@tuluppampam Yes, it is very unintuitive. However, when you eventually work on a large project empirical functions just make everything harder to organize. Also, a small problem with your reply, "functional" or functional programming in computer science has nothing to do with writing a program with only functions. Functional programming is a programming paradigm that let the computer handle how to execute a command by composing functions with a set of rules instead of defining operations and primitives; it is used in languages like Haskell and prolog, also javascript in a limited degree.
@@tuluppampam So, when you talk about "functional languages" you are really meaning to say languages like C. However, pure functional languages are very very very different from C. Just take a look at some Haskell code.
@@mikeyangyang8816 I think they indeed meant functions (/procedures, presumably) in a procedural language rather than functions in a functional language. Not that functions in a pure(ish) functional language are that different than those of a procedural language but coding with this paradigm is a drastically different experience than coding in an imperative language, object or procedural (my experience was with ML).
What do you think? Is C++ any good?
You made this video just to get drama. No you should not learn C++. Lots of people know it, few companies use it, most are moving away from it, there are better languages if are starting a project. Anyone leaning C++ will only annoy experienced users. Like you said. The first language anyone should learn is python, then Rust or C, then TS or JS. Maybe Bun. Everyone can use Python because there is always some quick little task that you can get done with python in a few minutes that will make any computer users life better.
It depends on what your coding
(I like c++)
C++ MUST DIE.
@@MichaelMantion That's wrong. C++ is still being used in industry and will never go away completely.
When I use C++, I program it like C, it is objectivly better.
C++ is Life. People love to jump on the bandwagon of hating a language. But I always quote Bjarne himself "There are only two kinds of languages: the ones people complain about and the ones nobody uses"
Except for Java , both nobody uses it except for Indian tutorial makers and somehow everybody still hates it.
@@PanosPitsi nah errybody use Java
@@PanosPitsi java deserves its hate.
@@PanosPitsi nobody uses it.... lol what field are you working in?
@@fr3dlopez it used to be good for cross platform and for android but it got murdered by kotlin and electron. Maybe it can still be used in a server but go and rust are flat out better. Companies that use Java still only do so because it’s too expensive to migrate, Java’s market share is falling each year however
C++ is a superset of C not a subset
words are hard. you right
Though C++ is not a strict superset of C, as it is not 100 % compatible with C. Depending on the standard of course, as the latest C and C++ standards try to move to a closer common ground again.
As is mentioned in the video, C++ is C with object, so doesn't that mean C++ is a subset of C?
@@retsu-h6460 If C++ was a subset of C, C++ code would be valid C code, which is not the case, it's the opposite. But as mentioned, it's not a 100% superset anymore since C99.
@@theawesomefire: _"Though C++ is ... not 100 % compatible with C."_
I wish I could remember the issue, but years ago I went round and round with another developer because I gave him a few lines of simple C code that I compiled and tested with my C++ compiler. It worked flawlessly for me but he argued that it didn't work for him. When I finally tested it with a C compiler I found he was correct.
I like how people always talk about "which language should you learn" as if we're often given a choice. In my experience, unless you're writing stuff totally from the ground up (or just wading into a new language as a hobby), which language you use is almost always dictated by what software you're developing for, or what your job or school requires you to use.
I wish I would have known that before spending years on low level programming before realizing most relevant jobs will require proficiency in another field
Exactly. and this is why I hate people who push others looking in from outside the industry to only learn a single language like python to start their journey. You gotta learn a lot of things first to narrow down what you wanna go into and then you dive deeply into its requirements.
It's mainly about which language to choose to learn for people that haven't started yet or haven't progressed very far. They'll be training themselves in both programming and the language they choose and that choice partly depends on what work might be available, what they want to do, and what is good at a learner level.
@@andrewdunbar828 shouldn't they choose a subject instead of a language?
@@sososo3906 They will choose many subjects. That's what everyone I knew did, though there were fewer languages to choose from then.
I am currently learning C++. I learned Python, Java and C for my CSE degree. I can say that I prefer C++ over Java because C++ feels more intuitive for me. Of course, I have yet to learn Rust.
Should've just skipped to Rust.
The first 2 months learning Rust will be very painful, but it is probably going to become your favorite language.
@@sotam8938 Well rust isn't really good for jobs, C++ still and will forever have codebases to maintain. C++ isn't horrible the programmers abusing its concepts are thus resulting in its reputation for memory leaks, Try to use smart pointers and keep raw pointers as a last measure.
@@punchcake4832 At the end of the day, programming languages are tools, each with their pros and cons.
C++ is the building foundation of a lot of stuff in our world nowadays...
My first language is C++, i've been exposed to pretty harsh concepts before that make the brain fry. C++ did sure fry my brain the first 3 months; but now that I am starting to understand it more, I really appreciate it and other languages are really easy!
If you can learn c++ you can learn any other language lol
@@intifadayuri truth brother
okay, now do X86 assembly, must be easy now :P
@@Henry-sv3wv Assembly, especially x86 might unironically be simpler than C++ or even C atleast in terms of syntax. it's just more tedious, time consuming and requires a solid understanding of how the CPU registers and memory stack work.
@@jjjj-x9g Bro, can you recommend any beginner-friendly literature (if such thing exists lol) on asm and cpu architecture?
0:20 Bjarne tweeted about c++ 4 years before the invention. the power of his programming
my dude🤣🤣
"tweeted" ?
@@victotronics yes
@@victotronics are you born now or what?
5 years and 1 month before Twitter went online
Professional C++ programmer here:
The thing is that C++ has a steep learning curve and that most developers just don't want to invest the time to learn the language. Just as you've said: with great power comes great responsibility and rarely anybody wants to be responsible because it is hard. Also C++ is usually taught wrong and rarely do teachers or courses explain that, for example, raw ( C ) pointers are not evil, they just cannot be owning pointers.
I agree with your suggestion on how to learn C++, I would just add that after learning C, fammiliarize yourself with the abstractions that the language introduces, by reading books and watching convention lectures.
That way you get a bottom up ( learning C and the memory model) and top down (learning abstractions) view of the language.
You just need time to understand the language, something that most people do not have today.
C++ is not a perfect language, but it does not deserve the hate it gets.
agreed, im not a proffesional neither intermediate of the language but when you dedicate time to the language and actually understand the ins and outs its pretty awesome, the power we have also its a must for anyone wanting to get into malware analysis or Reverse engineering
I tried getting into c++ for a while (currently i use rust) but I'd say c++ more than any language requires you to just "know" things, or at least thats how it feels. Like solid code sometimes just wont work because theres some quirk of the language or compiler or something that just screws with specific implementations that seem like they should work. It feels like to bugfix you need to have a textbook just containing these irregularities of the language itself
Also header files confuse me because im kinda dumb but thats just a c thing
I realize this is a month old, but could you by any chance expand a little bit on the idea of "raw pointers are ok so long as they're not owning pointers"?
@@user-sl6gn1ss8p Well, the thing is owning pointers are pointers which manage the lifetime of the object they are pointing to. That means that smart pointers in C++ are owning pointers because they have to destroy the thing they point to at the end of its lifetime. If A owns B, that means that A has to destroy B when the time comes.
That means that Non-owning pointers do not manage the lifetime of the object they point to, they just "look" at the object. They don't have any obligation to the thing they point to. That is why raw pointers are "ok" to use in a non-owning scenario. They are great if your function requires a view to the object. Nothing is hindering you to use pointers as you wish, but abrstractions like these are really handy when you have to reason with code that you are unfamilliar with. The purpose of abstractions is to carry intent.
I hope that I made it a bit clearer. :)
@@aleksandarnikolic2441 thanks, it does seem to make a lot of sense : )
I wrote C and then C++ for years as an embedded software developer. As the language grew more and more complex, I noticed developers very purposely wrote more and more complex code which took longer and longer to read, trace and understand.
Worse, there was a convoluted arrogance that came along with it. If you couldn't understand their extremely convoluted code, you were a lesser person. Few acknowledged that convoluted code was bad code.
And discussions about the language replaced abstract discussions about what the compiler and processor would have to do to accomplish something. It became essentially _wrongthink_ to even consider how a compiler would implement code.
While I was constantly striving to simplify the organization of data and the processing of it, my coworkers were constantly building empires of more and more complex code to their own glory. They _hated_ me when it got in my way and I simplified it.
I've had similar experience in my job. Unravelling my co-workers fancy and redundant code was a gruelling task.
what do you do as a embedded developer? sounds interesting
@@XenolVlatriX: _"what do you do as a embedded developer?"_
Embedded computers are those with no user interface or a limited interface. The microcontroller in a microwave is the most familiar example. I worked with telephone switchgear, solar controllers and bus communication systems.
Thank you.
I work a few million lines of crap above you (web), fighting the complexity demon wherever it decides to come to nest.
It's come to be point now where I find myself having discussions with senior engineers over the extreme danger of writing for loops in bounds-checking, memory managed languages, as 'you could get them wrong' and 'they are hard to read'.
I would give someone elses arm to write Go on the frontend, anything but JavaScript.
This is my problem as well. As someone often tasked with debugging and tracking down bugs, C++ is hard to work with. C lacks features but that means it's often easily readable with even just grep, and what you read closely matches the actual execution of the program. C++ syntax is made to make people feel smart while writing it but it ends up making the codebase hard to read and maintain.
The answer to number 2 "avoid sugar" should be "for (auto& num : v) {//code here}". Way simpler.
range-for loop is just syntactic sugar equivalent to an iterator loop.
Yeah.
I guess std::for_each(v.begin(), v.end(), []() {}); exists too, but I never understood why you would do that instead of ranged for.
@@danielsan901998 range-for loop also works on arrays. Furthermore, it doesn't matter that it is syntactic sugar over something. It matters that is a better syntax. Iterators suck because they are verbose and ugly.
@@sledgex9 it does matter that it is syntactic sugar because the point was "avoid sugar", and for-range loops is an example in favor of using syntactic sugar.
@@danielsan901998 IMO, I took it to mean "don't structure your code in a way just to make use of all c++ features". Notice the absence of std::vector in the second example.
If I was wrong in my interpretation of his point, then I consider that point a wrong one. Using syntactic sugar that makes things easier to write/read and less bug prone (off-by-one error in for-loop), is a MUST. Otherwise we should avoid lambdas too because they too are syntactic sugar over special structs.
My first language was C++ and I couldn't believe that other languages ain't got the features it has. I remember I was like: so how they do this and that?! Now I know they just don't ;)
C++ is the power but only after few brain-aches. I think most of the haters just failed with the language and others are repeating the haters.
I study mechanical engineering, so I'm not a typical programmer, but from my point of view C++ is one of the most important languages. It can be found in any application where speed matters, such as CAD modeling software, physics simulation, or real devices such as microcontrollers, control units, etc.
There are modern alternatives now tho, so no, it cannot be found in ALL projects where those things matter…
@@Stumashedpotatoes "uhm ackshually"
yeah yeah shut up. It probably STILL can be found in all those projects but indirectly. Rust for example uses LLVM to be compiled and LLVM is programmed in C++.
@@sharoyveduchi my point was that you do not need to write CPP yourself to get the performance of C, by using rust or zig.
Buddy you just did the biggest “um actually” I’ve ever seen. You brought up the fact that the compiler is written in cpp. “Umm akshually the compiler is written in cpp so youre still using it even when you’re not”. You gonna tell me Linux is written in C too?
Cringe bro, cringe
@@sharoyveduchi Fair point but unnecessarily vitriolic, Stuarts remark was completely fair and nothing about it was offensive.
@@Stumashedpotatoes idiot. Every big electrical and mechanical CAD which used to build stuff we use in our life is coded in c++
I agree ... first C and then C++. Working with object required a extra efford like understanding Inherince, poli, object relationships, notation like UML diagram classes a more... great video by.the way 👏👏👏👏
C++ keeps amazing me everytime I have to code with it, New Syntax, New Features.
I feel I don't know anything about programming at all everytime when I spending tim with it.
Its fry my brain, but I love it.
This systems administrator here, used to safe languages like c#, wanted to learn c++ to get closer to the OS. And man, I can't recommend enough. I got a pretty bad beating from memory management, and the community being fairy aggressive, but this language is powerful. Go for it.
I recommend using smart pointers as much as you can. With those you can be in 99% of the cases sure that there won't be memory leaks
I’m somewhat of a masochist myself
@@lx2222x I do whenever I can, but sometimes raw pointers are better, when calling native OS functions
@@chicoern heads up: look for std::out_ptr, it's been invented to deal with OS calls that expect in-out raw pointers.
@@Tibor0991 oooooooh didn't knew that! Thanks buddy!
As someone who started with Java, C++ is very rewarding. I get the same OOP and functional features I'm used to plus equally great libraries without the overhead of the JVM.
C++ is definitely *not* a "better" C. C is much easier to tinker with and iterate (without worrying about brittle design choices). C++ features and documentation almost always assumes you already know exactly what you want to build before you've written a single line of code. It is the complete opposite of say Python where you are guided towards the correct way of doing things.
Just the feature is worth learning C++ over (or in addition to) C, it's better and safer than C arrays, and there's a lot of other good features. Unfortunately, there's always "more" every three years, every new version is almost like a new language, as so many things get (literally and figuratively) overloaded. Even thought the latest tends to be an improvement (as in "for (auto thing : mythings)"), it still leaves a trail of a half dozen previous ways of doing something.
implementing vectors in C isn't hard, and if you don't want to do that, there's already libraries for it
It is not only about vectors. It is just nice to have a good baseline that allows you as a programmer to comfortably make something. C++ has this nice balance of abstraction, performance and type safety. Well, and then it adds one hundred other features no one uses except that one friend of yours. However, after you get the hang of what you actually need, and treat std::vector with caution and respect, C++ is mega comfy.
This has been one of the most difficult parts of the language while learning. Beginners just get lost with all these standards and once they start learning a new standard comes and basically invents faster and better ways to do things which you'd have to relearn. It changes faster than a lot of people can learn, and these changes can be transformative. It's not just simple things. And tutorials/courses need to be updated too, which is another big problem.
@@greypsyche5255 I would say that you do not need to use all standards, but you can definitely get overwhelmed, by people with their "best practices". Does C++ change fast? Compared to Python and Javascript it is changing really slowly.
honestly, I've used a ton of languages and I still find C++ to be my favorite language. I do use python for a lot of one-off type things that I intend to work on for less than a few hours, but I genuinely find C++ more fun because I can always find a trick to make my code be better.
If you're not using it for your job try rust and never look back
@@sososo3906 rust fanboys again ruining everybody days
@@KopieOG your right, finding out that the multi million dollar code base your company developed for 30 years will cost about as much to rewrite to be understood by anyone besides the original writers won't ruin your day, it will ruin your life
i use python for automation
and c++ for making programs
@@hodayfa000h if the code is written from scratch you should write it with rust, also it easy to make a python library and only implement in rust the bottlenecks of python
in my opinion the most important thing with using cpp is having guidelines in your project, you can accomplice same thing many different ways in cpp so at the beginning of the project you need to decide how you will design everything. For example In my work we just don't use inheritance or most of stl. I also think that rust will have the same story (both are big languages and things like error handling should be clearly defined)
also what i forgot to mention is that build system can be VERY complex in cpp. I don't have a lot of proffetional experience working with other languages but I don't think that in java or c# properly setting up build system can be so hard (even with cmake)
Good developers makes everything work fluently in any language 🙂
I understand what you mean with guidelines, but you also need some freedom to break the guidelines to find better ways.
I see a lot of projects becoming hard to handle because of enforced guidelines.
I think within the same project the code should be consistent. But between different projects the consistency can be different depending on the projects need.
Not using STL in 2022 is shooting yourself in the foot from the start; why avoid type and memory safe structures with zero memory and performance overhead?
@@olafbaeyens8955 of course i mean in single project single guildlines, as for flexibility in smaller project it should be fine, personally i work on 5g with hundreds other people so rules are enforce at ci level
@@Tibor0991 we just use boost ore have our own libery
I think that C++ does solve some of C's problems as a general purpose programming language (although it's questionable whether C should be used as one in the first place when there are languages like Rust) but it creates even more of them. As such, my "personal style" of C++ is basically C with some extra things about C++ that I like (most notably the standard library).
For me, understanding RAII as a mechanism for letting the compiler safely manage your resource lifetimes was eye opening. It moved me away from this “code in C” style
I learned higher level languages first and C++ before recently learning C. I can tell you, for embedded systems, C is still much preferrable compared to Rust, especially when doing bare metal. C is almost married to embedded systems in a way other languages aren't. And personally, having now learned C, i think for complex systems, it can be a death trap, but it's simplicity also taught me how be efficient as a developer, especially with memory
@@juniorjunior8494 I do agree but that's why I specified that I'm talking about general use cases and not special ones like embedded.
@@4cps777 Even if this common belief of "C is better for embedded system" is completely false, they are tons of project in C++ and rust for embedded system. Arduino uses C++, ARM dev program libraries are in C++.
C is used as a lingua franca so devices drivers are written in C so it can be used for every single languages, that’s all. Once you said that, nothing force you to use C as most languages can use C ABI.
But even drivers can use a C abi and under the hood be written in C++ or even rust.
Currently learning C++ (I come form a C# background). Love the language and I think it doesn't deserve the hate it receives. It's powerful, efficient & flexible.
Can you recommend the resources for c++ ;)
@@hecker230 A good place to start would be a channel called "The Cherno", he offers a wide variety of C++ videos, but you will have to move on to other stuff later since he doesn't cover everything. I also recommend watching some C++ weekly videos from Jason Turner once you get more advanced. (I also recommend you learn C first) *Good luck!*
Cool, I started with Java in uni and then became interested in C# but I’ve always had books about and interest for C++ for it’s efficiency and industry impact. I also like learning about backend development with .NET and C#. I’m having a really hard time deciding which one of these, C++ or C# to learn! I’m interested in topics like graphics, backend web dev, but even then, I have a hard time deciding!
@@erik9817 C++ is so important for your journey as a programmer. Even if you later learn a language unrelated to systems development, C++ gives you great insight into how to make more performant code. Other languages are also much easier after learning C++. Without learning pointers, for example, it can be harder to learn how all the objects connect together in C#. (C# has pointers called references, but they hide them). If you decide to go for a higher level language, try to not depend on a framework (like Unity) to learn the language. Otherwise you will be dependent on the framework and you won't learn how to structure the code on your own. C# is a really good language, but all programmers should learn C or C++ at some point imo to get a better understanding.
I wish I had learned C before C++ (I learned it as a module on my math undergrad), I've gone back to them a little since using OpenCL. Once I get a bit more of a wide overview of what they can do, because I still haven't built that much with them, and once I have looked into assembly and mixing all three, then I think I will finally let go and probably leave them for something like rust... but I want the context first.
don't waste your wishes, because like a plant, you should water the best and cull the rest.
About C++ security, I think most of the common problems that Rust solved, C++ already did too. The "problem" is that while in Rust they're there by default (and you can't escape it), in C++ they're opt-in (but highly encouraged by the community) features or patterns like smart pointers, RAII, etc. Smart pointers are, in practice, C++ ownership system.
C++ has a legacy of 30+ years, so a lot of legacy code and "legacy programmers" still use the old verbose, unsafe patterns, it's also the style teached at most universities (remember folks, professors usually don't stay up to date with the industry or language features). But I see a lot of effort by the community to enforce these new patterns and document them. For beginners it's a challenge to soak up and distinguish so much legacy knowledge together with the new knowledge. But I'm having a lot of fun in my journey.
I think C++ is going in the correct direction with safety. Though they will never get as far as Rust. The main things that still bug me when working on C++ is threads safety and lifetimes.
Companies I have worked with have flat out ban threading because it just causes so many bugs in what needs to be a safe system.
Lifetimes are just never explicit in C++ you just have to hope things are documented well.
C++ is not bad but it has years of issues that cannot be fixed.
@@dynfoxx I think the threading issue is due to the not explicit (bad) lifetimes in c++. The first time I managed to get UB in an actual project was because some undocumented behavior in a library causing a pointer to that was required to become invalid. It took me days to figure it out because I checked if it was valid the line before I passed it.
Multi threading itself is not that difficult, but using it efficiently usually means there are a lot of side-effects that become hard to keep track of. But if you have some expensive algorithm iterating over a lot of "uncoupled" data, it is not that hard.
@@someonespotatohmm9513 it's not that hard in theory. But when C++ gives you no help and it's up to documentation that may or may not be followed it gets to be a problem.
The fact that programs don't know atomic, volatile and shared pointer safety just gets annoying.
Half of the issue is that you can do it right but it's just hard to keep right. If I am not careful some other person will come mess it up.
They need owning mutates like rust has. It makes it more clear to start with. Though it will never be fixed it more so comes down to your code base and fellow engineers.
Short overview of Modula 3 and Ada gives an idea that Rust solved the problem which was solved long time ago, just not in world of C-family languages. Yes, it needed few decades to catch up, but better ever than never.
I think the amount of control c++ gives is double edged sword, but I like it. On one hand, you sometimes have to write a lot of lines of code to do something that other languages would allow with just a few, or sometimes even out of the box. On the other hand, though, I feel I'm in control and it's ultimately up to me to decide what a piece of code will do down to the really fine details. With some other languages it felt like someone took the steering wheel from me and just said "don't worry, I'll handle it" while blindfolding me.
I totally agree. I have the same feeling. I'd prefer be in control then to just have "trust me, bro" experience when I'm trying to worth with technology.
And don't forget the program you build will be FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAST
The first programming language I ever learned was IBM 360/370 Macro Assembler which is actually rather high-level as far as assembly languages go.
They thought we should learn this before moving on to COBOL and CICS. Also, AL was the "washout" class. If you can't handle that you don't belong here.
When a friend of mine was in the same program years later he asked me what he should learn after AL. I suggested C because it was the new hotness, the syntaxes of many other languages are similar and it's still low-level enough to let you do whatever you want.
It's a good baseline.
I've since learned that you can also do object-oriented programming in C using pointers to structures of pointers, but that makes my head hurt almost as much as the SmallTalk-style objects in Objective-C.
So much is already written and can be written in C++ that it makes sense to know it.
But while it's relatively easy to know C, if not always the best ways to use it, it's pretty impossible to know all of C++, much less how to use it well. C++ is a Very Complex language, though still low-level enough to be one of the fastest languages out there.
Rust is more trouble than it is worth. I prefer Swift. It feels much more natural to me.
But still, many device drivers are still written in C++ or even C so it's worthwhile to know them.
As Bjarne once said, "there is more simple and smaller language in C++" and Herb Sutter recognised this language and called it Cpp2 (cppfront)
If you are an engineer and plan to do anything related to software within engineering learning c++ is a must. Of course C is also important, but so much engineering work is done in C++. C is good for doing operating system related stuff and embedded systems.
Learning C first will tend to lead a developer towards a C-like C++ style. This tends to defeat the purpose of C++; See Kate Gregory's talk "Stop Teaching C".
Avoiding sugar is also not the best approach, and in fact the range for loop over a std::vector generates less assembly instructions than using a traditional loop variable. You can prove this in Compiler Explorer with -O3 and is mentioned in Bjarne's book A Tour of C++ 3rd Edition. This makes some sugar in C++ what Jason Turner calls a "negative cost abstraction".
Also "near zero cost" is not quite right. The language design involves what they call the Zero Overhead Principle, which is often misunderstood. This means not that there is actually zero overhead in using an abstraction, but that if you implemented it manually by hand using only C or assembly, you wouldn't be able to do better. At least, that's the goal...I won't go into how exceptions allocating and Run Time Type Identification are clearly in violation of this.
C++ is and will likely always remain my main language, and the unique features of C++ can be quite beautiful in some cases.
I have been working with the QEngine library for simulation and optimization of quantum physics, and it makes extensive use of templates and operator overloading to allow me to essentially create a Potential or Hamiltonian (a kind of functions which tells us how a Quantum system evolves) as a C++ object, by literally writing it as an equation.
But I absolutely agree, if you try to use "advanced" c++ features where normal C would do the jop it gets messy very quickly, and the error messages are not great, especially when templates are involved. I routinely get single error messages so long that they can not fit in my terminal.
It’s nice getting a video concise and straight to the point. A lot of UA-camrs would find a way to make this topic 10+ minutes
There is only one real programming language C++, the rest are wrappers written in C++.
C++ itself is written in C bro
@@JacksonNick-j6i Yes, initially the compiler for C++ was written in the C language, but when the compiler reached a certain level of development, it was used to further compile new compilers for C++ and for further development of the C++ language by writing new language functions in C++ itself.That process of writing a compiler in a compiler of the same language is called bootstrapping.
@@JacksonNick-j6i Yes, initially the compiler for C++ was written in the C language, but when the compiler reached a certain level of development, it was used to further compile new compilers for C++ and for further development of the C++ language by writing new language functions in C++ itself. That process of writing a compiler in a compiler of the same language is called bootstrapping
@@JacksonNick-j6i I think all major compilers are mostly C++ for some time now. But yeah, there is sooo much C out there that is essential to so many things. And Bjarne's first C++ compiler implementation CFront compiled C++ to C, though itself written in C++ apparently (just reading wikipedia now :) )
@@frydac Major compilers need major features
C++ was my first language and I am so happy that it was that way. It forces you to learn about the fundamentals so that you understand what is happening with code under the hood. Also, it has the best syntax. No scope by indentation and it is precompiled.
No needed for C++ here. You could just get around with C which is much simpler and easier.
@@unknownguywholovespizza hmm nah, unless you want to do embedded stuff
@@anon1963 I meant in terms of learning the fundamentals of memory management and programming not in terms of getting a job or building a software.
I have seen C++ being abused in embedded, especially using OOP patterns for every problem. Instead of making systems easier to understand, codebase grows ridiculously.
Off course there is a sense to choose C++ for some solutions, but in firmware development I follow my philosophy of 'staying with C if I can'.
goto spaghetti is anathema to programming, drop down coupling is pure miscegenation of coding. DRY? if repeating is the root of all evil (silly uncle bob) then i am WET because virtual is infinite.
There’s no better language than C to understand how hardware works, that’s why I’ll also stick with C for embedded
nice, perfect timing. was going to make a system project, and was really battling with this question.
I worked in C for about 2 years in total and about 1 year in C++, and while both languages can be pains in the ass in their own ways, C++ was way more convoluted, unintuitive and tedious to work with in my experience. High-level, near-zero cost abstractions sound good but unless you can somehow solve memory safety without GC, you're building on sand. C++ couldn't quite achieve that, though many of its features and libraries are undeniably an improvement over C. Rust managed to do decades later what C++ couldn't back then.
In conclusion, I wouldn't use C++ for any new project anymore unless I had no choice, like an Unreal game or a Qt application, though I wouldn't be surprised if both already have viable bindings in other languages.
How much salary ? And does it make permanent
Is a viable opinion. I definitely would never say that Rust managed what C++ could not though. Also, building on sand is literally what you are doing in C, since your constructs are build with premium quality TNT raw pointers waiting to collapse
Should one learn C++? Only if one is interested in becoming a serious programmer… and no language is perfect ;) people will like/dislike what they will. This video has excellent advice! Thanks for making it
I think C++ is very underrated. IMHO it's the best programming language that I know and I know more than 10 reasonably well. Its STL is a game changer for algorithmic programming. It's the best for competitive programming and makes you understand so many things much better. Maybe not everything should be written in C++ though. I use typescript and java on a daily basis but learning C++ fully made me understand so much more.
Do you know Rust?
I agree it's underrated. If I had to pick one language to be the most versatile, C++ is it. But it's terrible for some applications - web apps and data science for example.
C++ is astounding!! I am an embedded software developer who always used C and then from last 3 years have been coding in C++ and trust me 2 out these 3 years have been spent sometimes hating the langauge, sometimes pulling my hair out and sometimes acknowledging that things are way better in C++. And now I am at peace that this langauge is FANTASTIC, especially modern C++ i.e. C++ 11 and later.
Its a huge language, I dont even know 50% of it BUT that's the beauty, its not supposed to be learned completely and I dont know if its really possible.
I think the scope creep is what makes C++ too broad in features and becoming quite a mess
For me it's that none of the features seem to mesh well together. They all seem separated and still in a first revision state. It just feels unfinished for some reason.
this video is old but I'm a professional c++ programmer. I basically use C++ as a C plus the basic features I need. Once you can manage memory it's amazing what you can do. I try to not use too many different features so that my code remains very easy to read. that is crucial for me. I also program in c# and I love it but just where I don't have to push performance and memory management.
I heard it was efficient, so when I finally decided to learn a programming language, I picked that one. Bad, bad idea, but it's working out ok so far, I got the basic syntax after just about 20 hours of online courses and it feels intuitive enough to use. Can recommend.
Wonder how far along the cpp journey you are now
@@User948Z7Z-w7n Nowhere near as far as I should've in a year, sadly, but I'm still having fun with it. Not aiming for a career, so it's not a sprint to me, more of a leisurely stroll lol.
So, your thoughts?
@@User948Z7Z-w7n Still terrible, unfortunately lol. But I'm having fun with it.
@@Doki_Natsuki About whether it's worth your time? idk, I'm not in the industry, I just play around with it and it's hard and very verbose, so only worth it if you think that's fun.
C++ is a _superset_ of C, not a subset thereof. But that is forgetting the small amount of changes made to C which are not compatible C++.
Learning both C and C++ for embedded systems in school. The question of which one was better came up and my teacher told us: "Mix and match. If you prefer something in C use it, if you prefer something in C++ use that instead. If it works, it's already a great stepping stone to see which one you'll prefer".
the correct answer is neither
I love C++. std::vector, std::unordered_map, std::thread, smart pointers - great things. Save so much time, while offering a lot.
I find it really funny how some Rust and some C people hate C++ for exactly the opposite reasons. One side likes safeguards and the other wants the manual memory management. It’s how I know the C++ hate is overblown; if different people contradict each other on why it’s bad, then you know it’s mostly just a hate bandwagon. Feature creep & not being the most safe language ever aren’t crimes in my book. C++’s only crime is not being radical enough - it’s way too loose and lenient for some people but simultaneously too restrictive and abstract for others. It’s a very misunderstood language that I will never not love.
C++ has some unique features that I like. Templates are one of them. I was caught really off-guard when I was writing some C# and learned that generics had only a fraction of the flexibility
I'm a math and CS student. I've studied various languages such as Python, R, Bash, VBA, etc. When I first encountered C++, it intimidated me. Pointers were difficult to grasp, but at times, I found myself enjoying C++. When I contemplate computers or programs, my thoughts are expressed in C++.. Their power and elegance make me inclined towards C++. I'm young and still have a lot to learn, but I aspire to become a professional in C++. I don't exactly know why. Perhaps it's because C++ is elegant. Perhaps because my mind operates in C++.
Nice comment! I feel that I have a hard time deciding between focusing on C++ and C#. I've spent some time learning C# but C++ has always been in the background, I was also intimidated at first, but I bought books about it several years ago.
I can relate to this. My mind needs to have a deep understanding of how things work. When computers were simpler, I understood them at hardware level. You also need a hardware level understanding to effectively program microcontrollers. C and C++ are "close to the machine" and just suit the way my brain works. It's hard to explain exactly what that means to someone who doesn't think that way, but I completely understand what you're saying.
Man, C++ is not elegant. This just shows you haven't learned enough C++.
It is useful, and it is interesting, but there are just SO MANY CAVEATS.
I've been learning C++ for low level modding. It's been mostly fun, but god I hate having to maintain header files. That's worse than any confusing features.
Started using C++ way back before 'templates'. lol I agree that 'forcing' yourself to use some of the 'sugar' as you called it is a burden. There are times when it's just so much simpler to use 'printf' instead of all the 'cout
i basically taught myself C++ and when starting college i took a class on it to further increase my skill, and its by far one of my favorite languages right now
I basically use it as if it was C with bonus features (as how I personally feel it should be)
I frequently mix the syntax where I see fit, using malloc for simple things like making a block of data to copy from a file into, and making a class or struct when I need something more complicated (specifically talking about C++ structs here)
Its definitely not the best practice, but im just working on my own personal projects here, so its not like anyone other than me is going to be seeing it lmao
There's no reason to use malloc in C++ instead of new. Sometimes you may want to dynamically allocate a class that has a constructor, in which case new is the only way to do it properly. And using two different constructs to allocate memory throughout your program just adds mental overhead, instead of reducing it
@@xGOKOPx I should've been more specific, I do use new most of the time
@@whamer100 This is why rust is the leading programming language.
@@myself50094 i should really learn rust tbh, the syntax annoyed me last time i tried it, but that was a couple years ago
@@whamer100 i'm a troll
I wish I could have been a 90s game programmer. When I was a kid I tried learning C++ a few times, it was this mystically fascinating thing that was used to make every game that I loved at the time, needing to know chip architecture, incredibly complex syntax, that rewarding feeling when you get it to work, no AI assistants to help you just manuals....just wish I could have been part of that. What I would give to be a programmer on a game like Rise of Nations or Battlefield 1942 or console games at the time, or better yet a mainstream 90s adventure game or a Lucas Arts game, or even just Windows 9x software, or a Saturn or Playstation game...Now what do we have? Overabstracted javascript, python, ruby, annoying slow scripting languages, everything needs to be mobile and everything needs to be cross platform all at the same time. We have these annoying leetcode tests at these companies, yet it used to be that you actually had to be smart with working directly with the chips.
Before I learned how to program, I started out learning and designing CPU architectures 4 years ago when I was 13 years old. I find that understanding how CPUs works to the logic level really helps with programing (And understanding pointers).
Bjarne is the King. Went to the same University I currently are taking my degree in software engineering at! Second semester in!
look at it this way, the ones complaining about c++ are the ones writing articles and not code
I think Linus Torvalds has written a little bit more than jaust an article )
I have used a lot of C++ for developing a video game engine. I can confidently say that C++ templates are Witchcraft.
Remember: they are NOT the same as generics, which you would see in higher level languages, even though they look similar on the surface.A templated function is NOT a single function that takes a variety of arguments; it is a meta-function which generates multiple, isolated functions during compilation, with different memory locations.
Templates are practically a new language in itself. Horrifying stuff.
From my learning experience with C++, I would really like a C++ like language but whitout so many unnecesary features and obscure things.
You don't have to use the unnecessary features and obscure things, but I guess the problem is when you have to work with code somebody else wrote.
The C++ standards committee is highly focused on making the language simpler and safer.. having an understanding of core facilities makes it mostly a pleasure to use in my experience. I cackle at those who say they just write c++ like c.. that indicates no effort to use it as intended.
I've been studying it in college as most CS majors do and personally I found it to be a good language for learning low level programming as there are endless amounts of learning materials for it. The issue I have with it is the security risk that memory issues in the language has for actual production code. Rust and Carbon will probably finally cause C++ to become a legacy language like Colbol or Fortran. C++ is worth learning for now until Rust becomes the defacto low level systems language due to it being memory safe. Right more there are still a ton of C++ projects that need developers for them so if students learn it now, they can transition later.
Rust will probably become the "de facto" in 15 years. Python took 40 to be this popular
About C++ security, I think most of the common problems that Rust solved, C++ already did too. The problem is that while in Rust they're there by default (and you can't escape it), in C++ they're opt-in (but highly encouraged by the community) features or patterns, like smart pointers, RAII, ETC. Smart pointers are, in practice, C++ ownership system.
C++ has a legacy of 30+ years, so a lot of legacy code and "legacy programmers" still use the old verbose, unsafe patterns.
I don't really think c++ will go away any time soon, since, at least on embedded devices, space is low and while a hello world in c++ or c takes up 20 kb or so, rust's hello world requires over 500 kb.
@@shimadabr finally somebody said it! Really when it boils down to it, Rust is better for new developers whereas C++ is more oriented toward experienced developers and toward more complex software. The industry only keeps programmers for about 4 years max (especially web) so it’s no wonder Rust is a major push right now. Rust is just safe C.
Carbon isn’t actually meant to replace C++, it’s meant to be an intermediary language. It’s weird.
Taking the char * example given in this video, I do agree it's use is frowned upon except in the specific case of cross-platform messaging (where you want to guarantee no compiler dependent behavior/sizing, which even std::string doesn't provide across platforms/compilers); use of std::string is *much* preferred in all cases because it's a proper object, with all the features and protections that come along with it.
The issues I come across with C++ are typically one of the following:
1: The fact the feature set is so robust turns people off, because there's multiple ways to accomplish the same task. Example: Iterating over the range of an object; the *old* way would be a FOR loop using the start/end values and in iterator, but you now have ranged-based FOR loops (as of C++11) that do the same thing in an easier syntax.
2: Thinking of C++ as "C with Classes" and not taking advantage of the fact C++ is (mostly) an object-oriented language.
3: Trying to use C++ in a role another language can do better. Need a simple GUI o n Windows? Use C# (even I hate C++ Message Maps). Simple console app? Just use C. And so on.
This is why I basically just write C, but use C++ classes and objects because they are super useful
It is not just about classes and objects. Todays C++ standard library provides many useful features such as algorithms, threading, file system and much, much more. You don't have to reinvent a wheel and it is really fast. Even memory allocations if done right, you dont need to worry about releasing memory. Though you need to know how templates work :)
currently attending at full sail for game development
and trying to learn this was a bigger bite than i could grasp
then all the rules against using ai for help or using the built in tools or using an outside source just overwhelmed me more
A lot of the code shown here is very dated, such as using begin() and end() to construct for-loops instead of range based, as one example. Compiling errors have come somewhat further, too. If you're stuck coding in a C++11 application, then fine, but it's over a decade old in a language that sees major adjustments every 3 years.
Sadly, the main point almost applies MORE to modern C++, imo, so I guess it's a moot point...
Valuable info as usual, thank you my friend, useful info from an experienced engineer is as good, if not better, than a proper engineering book. love your insights, I am currently learning C++, I just finished C. Also learning Python.
I'm reading Bjarne's book - "C++ Programming and Principles" and he recommends against learning C just to learn C++ afterwards.
Is it a good book to learn C++ from?
I graduated on telecommunications, so I've seen c and c++ while studying. Then, in my first job (2015), I started working with JS (for a small part of my tasks), until I decided to learn it all the way (2019). Did a lot of courses on webdev and JS and switched jobs to full time web developer (mostly backend, though). Then I started learning Rust, and that made me see how much of a toy language JS can be (although I do still love it). And now I'm learning c++ (I forgot practically everything from university) to help a friend in a project of his.
And, to be honest, I am considering learning also c right after finishing with the exercises in exercism and probably checking out your c course.
I love C++ for it's aesthetics, python looks oversimplified in this way. You feel exactly what your program will do, it's pretty useful.
It may be hard to understand memory, pointers, addresses, but it's worth it.
C++? Aesthetics? Come on bruh
@@bmno.4565 u gotta admit c++ looks pretty cool ngl
Nice comments bro, makes everything that much clearer.
I think error messages from a C++ compiler is just to complicated. And dont say ”just learn it”, this is what I think: the error messages are to complicated.
I got a lot of C++ books, I read them, I still don’t use C++. I happily use C or Java, even C# or Javascript.
If a library has a C++ or a C API, I use the C API every single time.
Have you tried Rust? The error messages from that compiler are consistently the most helpful I've ever seen.
@@0xTas I actually havent. I tried Go but not Rust. Thanks for the suggestion.
C++ is a great language for a lot of things. Their binary compatebility makes it the only option next to some C compilers for basically every industry where safety & security really matters.
C++ is an awesome language if you know what you are doing and want to design a close to perfect system.
C++ is a terrible language if you still need to fugure out what you are doing, develop along debugging and if you want to do everything all at once. Even if the language is highly capable of doing way to much in one line. C++ also requires the same people working on the same project for a long period to some extend. Like 20+years. It's also quite hard to jump in a running C++ project, regardless the experience, as features and style can differ quite a lot.
I don't see C++ leaving any low level hardware, robotics, high-performance compute anytime soon.
C++ is awesome, its std:: library that is bloated and bad.
Zero cost abstractions, OOP, overloading of operators, auto, quality of life stuff (default function overloads).
I use it all the time on my embedded stuff, it's just great if used properly (basically as C with good stuff).
Totally agree. It's a good language that is VERY easy to use incorrectly.
It's like C++ wants to do it all and integrate all new languages into C++style, at the time the new languages were hyped.
What? STL is its strong suit. It is very powerful and useful. Just take a look at the module. And you pay for what you use from it.
PS.: The funny thing is, that all C++Conference talks got a strong Rust-flavor in 2022 xDDD
@@sledgex9 you are right but for embedded most stuff is bloated and MISRA discourage usage of std library
I started my programming journey by learning C and C++ and because of that i find it no problem learning basics of any languages out there
C++ is my favorite language. I also know C, C#, Python and couple more obscure ones.
I like C++ for multiple reasons. It's deterministic unlike others; no hidden background operations like garbage collectors, it's low level when I need it and scales up to high level when I want stuff done, it's still the fastest language around when used properly, and I like its templates a lot. C++ has been evolving massively in the past 10 years making it faster and easier to use.
The cons are that it comes with a lot of history.
Exactly, well said. People really taking away the low-level part and cry about the language because they come from languages like python and expect to breeze through it. C++ teaches you things you would never learn as a person who works only with very high-level languages, it really teaches you good programming practices, how the compiler works, OOP and just how to optimize your code
@@Dulge Thanks. Though I don't think C++ teaches good coding practices more than other languages either, or i didn't understand what you're saying. C# for example, does things differently but is pretty well structured. C++ is actually pretty relaxed in comparison to Rust.
If people think C++ is hard then I do think C++ has problems in accessibility. I don't think it should be hard to use. C++ also has problems with usability. Eg. Static reflection...
@@noxagonal Yeah, i feel like the "hard" aspect is there for a reason however, if C++ was easy and we didn't need to do extra steps or have to understand pointers, references, OOP, virtual functions, inheritance, polymorphism and just a bunch of rules the language has then it wouldn't be powerful and used in nearly every engine, library or wherever programs and embedded systems need that performance and power
@@noxagonal As for the Rust being harder i personally would disagree, I think learning rust as a person familiar with another language makes it harder to learn then for a person who is brand new to programming because the way rust is. Mainly because of the legacy aspect C++ and most languages follow
@Dulge I probably shouldn't talk about Rust as I haven't used it on any actual project yet.
I think we're approaching this from different perspectives. For example, if you try to use iterators in C++98 vs. C++20, you'll see what I mean.
I think some basic knowledge about hardware is necessary in any compiled language, but even then, much of it could be abstracted in language level so that it still performs good. I think C++ could use a complete second standard library altogether, as complete as the current stl but without the history. Most game engines use stl minimally because it's ill suited for game development, though better nowadays, there are still many reasons to not use it. Easier, in this case, would be to have better utilities that we wouldn't need to write our own.
I started off with C++ first, followed by some lua for game script files, then to a bit of C, followed by Python and GdScript (which combines best of both C++ and Python). Now I am learning 8 bit Assembly... so I can improve my understanding of memory in C/C++.
When you start learning c/c++ you would start to learn how computers works, you would get an intuition. But with other languages they treat computers as black boxes, like don't even dare to look into it.
*Do* use sugar, when it's what you mean. Use `for (const auto& e : stuff)` when you want to do something for each thing in turn.
2:10 I think you meant that C++ is a superset not a subset of C
im a Swift developer, ex Obj-C / PHP / ActionScript etc... and to me C++ is awesome. i did some games in the past with it.. its crazy fast. ridiculous how many particles i could simulate with it without dropping framerate (just software rendering)
If your boss tell you to use C++ or get fired, use C++. If it's your own project and you comfortable with (your choice), use whatever you like. They are tools to get job done. That's it.
C++ was always slow for me. Until I got the ownership and moving semantics and verbiage down. I knew about this functionality, I wrote it in C functions all the time.. but it took me forever to figure out how to do it in C++.
C++11 and boost, I think is one of the greatest language standards around.
What would you recommend before learning Rust? Is learning C before Rust a good idea? Asking because I'm interested in learning Rust, seems like you can build some really cool stuff with it, and I'm familiar with C but only the very basics (basically what's covered in CS50). Otherwise I'm pretty comfortable coding in any high-level scripting language (JS, Python, Ruby, PHP, etc).
You are set to go! Having done some coding in C and high level language is enough to get started!
IMO if you've properly messed around with memory and know how you can really mess up without being careful with memory, then you can try learning Rust, you'll then appreciate what it tries to solve.
So you're good. Try learning it
You can definitely jump in as you are right now, I was only marginally familiar with Python and Javascript when I started learning Rust (like ~5 months ago) and it's already my most comfortable and also favorite language to work in! Start reading through the book and don't give up when things get confusing! Rust has some concepts like lifetime annotations which won't be familiar to almost anyone at first but if you can push past those and the other low-level concepts that are new to you then you'll have access to one of the most pleasant languages to use imo, considering what it can offer.
If you start out programming I would say rust because of the shooting yourself in the foot thing. If you are going to use it, whichever one best fits your purpose. The biggest difference between the 3 are the language features and syntax anyway.
Learning C will only hamper learning Rust. You can easily write in C++ as if it was C. If you try the same in Rust(and you will if you learn C first), borrow checker will crush you.
Working with C++, also before beeing software developer. Never learned so much about computing and computing language then with C++ and C++ is fast und used in many applications. So yes, learn C++, its worth it
I love C++, have been using for 10 years now and it is still my favorite language, but I get the feeling that some new features just feel "slapped on" and the language itself just kinda feels "outdated", like most features just get layered on top as an afterthought, which makes the syntax more confusing over the years.
Mind giving an example? I can’t think of something that actively hurts readability other than templates and SFINAE - the latter of which is getting replaced with concepts (an evolution, not a devolution).
Take a look at cppfront (cpp2). There is still hope for a better language to hatch out of this mess.
C++ was actually the first language I've learned in a computer engineering course and in my opinion, it was better than learning C first. The way that it was taught to us was with the heavy use of STL where you have things that you will find in a more high level languages and because we weren't allowed to use pointers in our assignments, it was somewhat difficult to shot ourselves in the foot. We have of course later been introduced to raw pointers and stuff, and as a result, when needed for programming microcontrollers and stuff, I had kinda knew C already and stuff like Java and Python was really easy to understand since C++ has everything. But yeah, learning and using it for my personal projects (e.g. using it without an OS and having to reimplement some of the standard library), it has now become a never ending rabbit hole of getting to know everything that the language has to offer.
Also, C++ is not a superset of C in all, but a language which is 'mostly compatible' since it has a different linking and starting with C99, C has things that are not supported in C++, like designated initializers, some keywords and probably other stuff that I don't know about.
The only real benefit of C++ over C is having many more libraries. Its hard to find modern libraries for C.
'modern' maybe, by whatever metric you used to measure modernity, but the first statement is quantitatively false.
2:40 "Do not learn this as first language" Meanwhile my college proceeded to teach that in our programming 1 course, a course meant for people with little to no background in programming
Well said, C++ is not a bad language it just gives a great toolset to easily write bad code. Although i gotta disagree partially, because writing high level abstractions may cost a little performance at times, but if used well can at least in my opinion greatly help the code to be easier to refactor later on.
I heard different opinion. Learn C++ separately from C, and learn it as a high-level language like Java. So without raw pointers but with stdlib. So it will be much more gentle learning curve.
Whoever told you that, gave you bad advice. If you were even able to learn that way at all, that would be the best way to learn to write bad code, by not understanding how anything actually works. You don't need to learn to master it, but spend even just 1 or 2 months learning C first, and you'll at least understand the basics of how things work under the hood in C++. It'll save you a lot of time, headache, and trouble down the road, and make the learning process in C++ far, far easier.
@@nunyobiznez875 I think that advice comes from Bjarne himself. Check his lecture "Learning and Teaching Modern C++" from CppCon. Also good lecture "Stop Teaching C" from Kate Gregory
@@Airatgl I know Bjarne is the original source, though many repeat it. I've read him make similar statements in Programming Practices and Principles. It's still terrible advice, but coming from him, you at least know his motivation. He wants people to use C++ and not C. It's also been a very, very long time since he was a beginning programmer, and he's never even been a beginner looking in on C++ for the first time. I can tell you from experience, that it's the worst programming advice I ever received. Had I not gone and learned C, I would have never even have learned C++, because I would have probably given up on it long before. After learning C, I was able to focus directly on C++'s unique features, since I already knew all of the basic stuff. It made it so much easier. I can't even put into words, just how much easier it was. I was also able to come into it, with full understanding of how things were working under the hood, or at least a very good idea of what was going on, which makes it easier to use the tools correctly, and avoid common mistakes. It was a significant advantage having that knowledge at the start. Not to mention, I had a greater appreciation for the convenience features, since I knew what was actually being done for me.
But to each their own. You are free to do as you like. I can only tell you that I heard both advice, and to some extent, I put both into practice personally. I think it's terrible advice to tell someone to start with C++, without at least learning C first. Fortunately, I was also lucky enough to have heard someone else's bad experiences of trying to hop over C right into C++ as well though too, who also advised it's much easier to start with C and wished they had done that. So, it saved me a lot of headache.
I'll also point out, that every University CS course that I've seen, also starts with C, long before any talk of C++. There may be some out there I haven't seen, but I'm not aware of any.
This is only one University Professor, but here's a CS Professor at Clemson University, explaining some reasons why he uses C for beginners, and not C++:
ua-cam.com/video/KGFOLJiIo1g/v-deo.html
and: ua-cam.com/video/BIht65Xu1jI/v-deo.html
My introduction to computer programming in school was Visual Basic 4 in year 1 and then C++ in year 2. Granted this was the late 90s, but it was still a trial by fire and a lot of unlearning in the years after. I still like C++ though.
I agree, c++ is awesome. You get the low level control of C, the feature richness of python and in some cases even syntactic sugar that is close to as readable as python (like range based for loops and structured bindings), but all this feature richness makes it quite hard to learn. And template errors are an absolute nightmare to read and fix. I would argue that they code alleviate a lot of the pain by improving the readability what the compiler spits out when you messed some template code, or use of a template library up.
You described the same problem people have with Unreal Engine
It just throws every single feature at you and makes it harder to learn, whilst Unity is a lot more simple to start learning
@@tuluppampam yeah the main issue is that idiomatic, modern c++ requires you to use use many advanced features of c++. In order to actually understand them it's best to learn old school C++ first and then move on to the modern features, because the necessity for modern c++ only becomes apparent when you understand the problem with old school c++. The issue I see here is that many people in the c++ community are quite toxic when it comes to newbies not using "the idiomatic way" of implementing something.
I don't think people have to learn C first. As a starting language, I think C++ contains a much simpler language trying to break free, chained down by legacy. I feel we scare away people from it by spooking them with scary concepts like pointers, references and memory safety. As though that is something exclusive to C/C++.
If I were to introduce someone to programming through C++, I wouldn't teach them about raw memory allocation. No pointers, pointers to pointers, or even references. Reduce the friction between them and their code until it becomes relevant to understand the more core concepts. Let them pass variables by copy while they're learning. Move semantics have reduced the overhead of that dramatically. Let them return copies, they don't have to understand copy elision or NRVO. You don't teach someone java or C# by telling them how to appease the garbage collector.
It's naive, yes. But even basic things in C can appear arcane. Take the supposedly safe "sprintf" - lovely name.
You need to understand stack vs heap allocation, when to alloc/free. null terminators, the caveats of the sprintf family of functions, the 'safe' versions of them, what that strange 'restrict' keyword means, etc.
Of course, there are nice, basic, declarative examples like adding strings together, which while basic, lets beginners appreciate how that happens under the hood.
Though, as a C++ developer, definitively try pure C at some point. There are a bunch of things you can learn to appreciate from it. It'll make you a better C++ developer for sure.
Junior me's mind was blown realizing you could hide details in translation units. Or how often all you needed was some fixed size buffer/variable allocated on the stack.
Greetings! I want to learn programming basics, final goal being able to develop my own tools in cibersecurity (malware analysis/development).
I have roughly two years to dedicate to learn the basics, programming included. Could I ask for your opinion on how to structure a complete beginner study guide for not only programming in general but doing it in c++? What resources would you use? Any input is appreciated from an experienced and advanced user.
Later on I will need python for automation, c#, powershell... But I could use a direction from zero level.
Thank you in advance, sir
Don't you worry, I know what I'm talking about, and I know very well what you're talking about as well. I'm omitting parts to make a point. Details that also shouldn't matter to beginners.
It's hardly a perfect language and never did I suggest it was. More experienced people are free to take educated decisions, and provide good reasoning for it.
When it comes teaching people programming, I wouldn't say Ada would be my first pick.
C is much simplier to understand and it takes less time to learn than C++.
Pointers are really not a big deal if it is explained well to a beginner.
Agreed, however I think the perception of pointers is they are somehow complicated, but they are not, its just a variable that holds the memory address to a value, to get the value you have to dereference the pointer first using * or -> and that's mostly it. To allocate a pointer you can use the new keyword, and to delete it delete. You don't delete it then it will stay in memory. When I have mentored beginners they picked this up quickly so I have no doubt someone with an aptitude for programming won't struggle too much then, once they are comfortable with that introduce them to smart pointers and tell them never to use raw pointers again lmao
Although having to invest in assets much more, I drafted to learn Unity instead of UE just to avoid C++. Maybe if one day Epic switch UE's language to Verse, I can give another shot.
I am in the process of learning both C and C++. My limited observation so far is that one really needs to understand the limitations of C++ when it comes to embedded. I do like some of the features found in algorithm. On the other hand, having so many different ways just to initialize a variable in C++ is just one example of how the whole system is creaking under the weight of backward compatibility.
"C is what you get when you almost always say no to adding something to the language.
C++ is what you get when you almost always say yes to adding something to the language "
@@WilliamWeatherholtz and "Rust is what you get when you design a language sensibly from the start" :p
@@0xTas : Oh? Then why does it still use symbols to declare pointers? That was an _experiment_ when C did it, and it hasn't turned out to be a great idea.
@@0xTas Another Rust shill.
How much you get paid per post?
It was the first language we learned at university. For the better part of a year.
I never looked back
I usually code in Java/angular/R because of my job, but most of my personal projects are in c++, it's a wonderful languaje, and one that i would't like to forget
What's your job?:3c
Man... C++ was my first programming language at college and even haven't saw the C programming language first!
I always knew that learn C before C++ was the right way, but I saw less than the very basics because was only one semester.
My main issue with C++ (although I have only played around in it to try and mod games) is that I mainly learned to program in Python and I really take line 14 (and 15 lol) of the Zen to heart, while C++ just has too many parallel ways to do something. It is not obvious which way to use, and it seems that in the same code (e.g. the same game) different developers will use different ways to do essentially the same.
Oh, and I have seen an open source software that both had a custom class Color and imported QColor, and mostly used QColor for colors that could update (user settings) and Color for fixed color, but there were exceptions. Why?!
The latter isn’t a C++ issue though? It’s how that particular dev team decided to use other packages.
Last paragraph: Probably to abstract away the use of QColor.
I think whatever language attempts to have such a broad scope as C++ while offering the same level of control and performance will end up similarly complex :) As a game developer and low-level systems programmer I've used C++ all my life. The modern versions are actually quite good, you can pick a subset of the language that's basically C#. However I like the ability to "bend the rules" if the situation calls for it.
You gotta understand that this is a very prolific and well-proven language. God knows how many machines, complicated infrastructures, embedded systems, compilers, operating systems as well as high-level systems are running on C++ at the moment. Probably billions. Does it have its problems? Yes, of course. Like any other language; C is so simple but it has very limiting features so you have to implement everything by yourself, python is so slow for performance critic systems, rust's compiler is so tight and it is hard to write rust code, etc. But these languages are also great and well-proven languages.
So don't be biased like "Oh C++ sucks it is for egoist and narcissist people" it's just not the case. Use whatever language fits best for your project.
C++ is a useful language, no doubt, and it has some features that I really like. But C++ may very well have terminal flaws now as well, that are growing. I think it may be going a bit far to say it's a "well proven language". It may have been well proven before 2011, but it's a dramatically changing language now. The thing I hate most about C++, and what I see as it's biggest flaw, is all of the redundant bloat and inconsistencies in the language, which only continues to grow exponentially. The language bloat is practically doubling in size, about every 3 years now, with no signs of slowing down. It's already like a 7-headed hydra, or more like a 7-headed python-hydra hybrid. How long before it's an usable mess, and new users aren't even able to learn the language? I don't know, but I do know that the current rate of growth isn't sustainable, and the people responsible for it, don't even seem to notice there's a problem. Just my two cents. I'm certain there are some who would disagree.
@@nunyobiznez875 I agree C++ has a lot of features, some may say unnecessarily much that makes the language very complex. But the good news is you can always use a subset of C++ that you need, and you can always only use the features you think are useful. For example, if you don't like templates, don't use them. If you don't like functional programming features, fine, don't use them. And another good news is C++ is back-compatible (generally), so if C++11 is your style, you can use it. What I'm saying is, it is obvious that the language has some problems, but I can always find a lot of other problems in any given language. So these "Stop using C++" kinds of things are really overreactions.
@@kerim7158 I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with C++, but just to be clear, I'm not saying people should stop using it, nor am I trying to overstate the case. The language has a lot of merits as well, but I'm guessing you're already well aware of them. I'm only stating concern, and it's mostly concern for the future of the language. But I do think this problem is a major contributing factor to a lot of the "Stop using C++" rhetoric, and as the problem grows, so to are the calls likely to grow.
Your advice is good though, and it's mostly what I do. But avoiding features can only take a person so far as well, when needing to interface with someone else's code. So, I tend to try to adapt to the changes, even if I don't like all of them. But it can be a lot to keep up with.
The solution really is just for the ISO board to be more thoughtful and careful with the language updates though, instead of throwing everything at the wall and seeing what sticks, then needing to release more features just to fix the mistakes and stuff that didn't quite work. Especially, since once it's in, stuff almost never gets removed. But, as I said, I really don't see the updates slowing down.
I think they're overly concerned about being outdone by some shiny new feature in some other language though, and are paranoid of C++ being left behind. But maybe I'm wrong, and they have some other goal for continuing to bloat up the language.
There are several features of C++ that I like, however, it can also be greatly abused. I use C or C++ depending on the application being implemented. I like C++ function overloading when implementing applications that will grow over time. But for embedded systems, C is more straight forward, has a smaller footprint, and is better for programming down the the bare metal. For web apps, accounting apps, etc, C++ is a better fit. Choosing C vs C++ is also depending on if you're writing your own apps completely standalone, or, if you will be interfacing to 3rd party libraries. Sometimes you don't have luxury to choose, depending the environment you're working in. Unless you are the boss, you may be required to work in C, C++, Python, etc, etc. If you're looking for work or a career in some field, the more languages you learn, the more job possibilities there will be.
From doing a personal projects (around 100,000 lines+ of code) using C++, C, Java, TypeScript/Javascript, and ObjectiveC, I truly think c++, Java, or ObjectiveC are the best languages simply because they all offer near zero cost for abstractions. For example, when I was writing TS in ReactNative I wrote a lot of classes and abstractions, but the performance gets worse and worse to the point a cold start takes more than 10 seconds, which I just recently found out TS doesn’t “compile” to js but simply translates to js. I was expecting TS can “unroll” the classes to js. This causes the project to get extremely bloated since you have to write as much logic into the same file as possible to preserve performance. I am not very experienced with javascript, but this property alone makes me dread writing any js.
In C++, you can write pure C style, zero class projects; or, you can write completely object oriented project. Both styles will give you the same performance (some times the oop style will give you a better performance due to the -O2 level optimization the compiler can re-reference the class structures to decrease binary size, but C style code doesn’t have that information). I personally think oop offers clearer abstractions while writing code, and in the long run make the project scale a lot easier. That’s why I personally prefer it.
However, I think anyone who can proficiently write C style code should NOT switch to C++. If you can write scalable C code, C++ definitely offers little value for you. Even so, I recommend anyone who is starting programming to start with C++ or Java, because these languages helps you to learn about structuring a project that can be scaled from the start. And you can switch to C style languages at a later date without any trouble.
I've found Java weird to learn as a first language as I couldn't understand why I had to use classes and objects even for simple operations (I started with codecademy so it might be a problem with the site)
Then having methods instead of functions felt even weirder (it took me a long time to figure out how to use them)
I feel like Java is somewhat less intuitive then a more functional language, but that maybe depends on experience
@@tuluppampam Yes, it is very unintuitive. However, when you eventually work on a large project empirical functions just make everything harder to organize.
Also, a small problem with your reply, "functional" or functional programming in computer science has nothing to do with writing a program with only functions. Functional programming is a programming paradigm that let the computer handle how to execute a command by composing functions with a set of rules instead of defining operations and primitives; it is used in languages like Haskell and prolog, also javascript in a limited degree.
@@tuluppampam So, when you talk about "functional languages" you are really meaning to say languages like C. However, pure functional languages are very very very different from C. Just take a look at some Haskell code.
@@mikeyangyang8816 I think they indeed meant functions (/procedures, presumably) in a procedural language rather than functions in a functional language. Not that functions in a pure(ish) functional language are that different than those of a procedural language but coding with this paradigm is a drastically different experience than coding in an imperative language, object or procedural (my experience was with ML).