Insulted for using C++?

**DavidP** · 09-16-2009

Maybe there was just 3 people in which case "some" would have been a better choice.

Sorry, maybe I should have been more definitive in my word choice. I merely wanted to show my preference towards C++, but I did not mean to publicly try and demote Java or C#. I actually love using C#. I think it's a great language. I prefer not to use Java, but I find a use for it every once in awhile. That's just my personal preference, but I make no statement about regarding its usefulness or excellence as a programming language in the software development world.

**NeonBlack** · 09-16-2009

Originally Posted by bithub

Saying C# or Java is better than C++ is like saying a hammer is better than a screwdriver. All it does it display the person's ignorance surrounds the tools.

I like that analogy. Next time someone asks me the difference between C and javascript, I'll use it.

But C++ C# and Java can have a lot of overlap in application, so I think it would be more like the difference between a band saw and a jig saw.

**abachler** · 09-16-2009

Originally Posted by NeonBlack

I like that analogy. Next time someone asks me the difference between C and javascript, I'll use it.

But C++ C# and Java can have a lot of overlap in application, so I think it would be more like the difference between a band saw and a jig saw.

More like the difference between a feather duster(C#) adn a powerwasher(C++).

Sure you don't wanna use a feather duster to clean the siding (big high performance application), but you don't want a powerwasher to clean the lampshades (overkill for a web page).

**MK27** · 09-16-2009

Originally Posted by abachler

Sure you don't wanna use a feather duster to clean the siding (big high performance application), but you don't want a powerwasher to clean the lampshades (overkill for a web page).

What the are you talking about ?

Originally Posted by laserlight

To be fair, you could do that with C# too

More subtle, less sharp. The source.

**NeonBlack** · 09-16-2009

Nice one, MK.

There are a lot of times where it doesn't make a difference whether you use C# or C++ and it's up to personal preference. (But never Java!)
So Abachler, maybe a vacuum and a hand-vac?

**MK27** · 09-16-2009

Originally Posted by NeonBlack

Nice one, MK.

Thanks!

Pretty sure "the javascript engine" or interpreter or whatever is usually written in C++ (like the browser itself), so this previous distinction seems kind of illusory IMO.

**bithub** · 09-16-2009

Originally Posted by MK27

Thanks!

Pretty sure "the javascript engine" or interpreter or whatever is usually written in C++ (like the browser itself), so this previous distinction seems kind of illusory IMO.

That depends on the JavaScript engine. JavaScript engines have been written in many languages, including ... JavaScript.

**MK27** · 09-16-2009

Originally Posted by bithub

That depends on the JavaScript engine. JavaScript engines have been written in many languages, including ... JavaScript.

LOL! Great name for that. Wow.

My two new words for the day: homoiconic and meta-circular. Altho I have heard about this before when researching the origin of eval(), which started in lisp.

**Kennedy** · 09-16-2009

Ah lisp, now therth tha languith.

**MK27** · 09-16-2009

Originally Posted by Kennedy

Ah lisp, now therth tha languith.

I got into gimp-fu a little bit recently. Natively, it's done in "scheme", but there is a plug-in for python. Not knowing either one, I figured I'd just learn some rudimentary scheme -- but (YUCK! (it (is (just (horrible)))) -- I ended up using the plug-in.

**NeonBlack** · 09-16-2009

Wow, I didn't know that anyone used Scheme outside of freshman CS courses. I have done my scheme myself, but messing around with lisp made me glad to have brace matching when you get lines that end like this )))))))).

**Dae** · 09-17-2009

I don't know what it is that thinks your wrong. Don't get me wrong, you all make good (albeit obvious) points. Maybe its because I've actually tried learning all 3 of these languages when I was newer. I definitely ran into more troubles using C++ than C# and Java combined. C# was pretty great, and I gave up on Java (seemed like the worst - more jobs or not). C/C++ has more libraries, but they usually have different usage, documentation, dependencies, and bugs. You do recreate data structures to begin with, but when that's said and done don't you use the ones included in the standard library.

**abachler** · 09-17-2009

Ultimately any serious/critical/performance sensistive code will be written in C++ because high performance requires a finer degree of control than either java or c# give you. All the safety rails of java/c# actually just hold back a programmer that knows what they are doing. Maybe I want to use SSE instructions to do a streaming memcpy() on unaligned char arrays and I don't want to spend half an hour convincing the compiler I know what I'm doing.

The safety rail that keeps you from shooting yourself in the foot also keeps you from shooting the snake that is about to bite your ankle.

When you have been programming as long as I have, you really tend to disregard the very notion that a programmer needs to be protected from making mistakes. There will never be a programming language in which it is the least bit difficult to write buggy code.

**MK27** · 09-17-2009

Originally Posted by NeonBlack

Wow, I didn't know that anyone used Scheme outside of freshman CS courses. I have done my scheme myself, but messing around with lisp made me glad to have brace matching when you get lines that end like this )))))))).

There is a great mail list thread somewhere where the GIMP author (which gimp is pure C, but uses the "tinyscheme" interpreter to process gimp-fu scripts) fields multiple and apparently befuddling, to him, inquires from people looking for the python plug-in (it's now become standard) or docs. He just cannot understand why people don't like scheme and would prefer something else, he says scheme is a terrific and easy to use language that is used to teach CS at MIT, that there is nothing special about python if that is what you want but, blah blah blah.

The disadvantage of the python one is that you must restart gimp if you alter the scripts, whereas the scheme ones can be reloaded. I sort of think that is his revenge

**Sebastiani** · 09-17-2009

Originally Posted by Dae

I don't know what it is that thinks your wrong. Don't get me wrong, you all make good (albeit obvious) points. Maybe its because I've actually tried learning all 3 of these languages when I was newer. I definitely ran into more troubles using C++ than C# and Java combined. C# was pretty great, and I gave up on Java (seemed like the worst - more jobs or not). C/C++ has more libraries, but they usually have different usage, documentation, dependencies, and bugs. You do recreate data structures to begin with, but when that's said and done don't you use the ones included in the standard library.

The most glaring, and in my view, unforgivable, omission from these languages is the deterministic destructor. It really irritates me, honestly.

Besides that (and this may be an over-generalized observation) in my experience, it seems that most Java/C# programmers have a tendency to be much less proficient at the algorithmic aspect of writing code, which indicates to me that the fact that the very design of these languages discourages "fine-grain" control actually inhibits a deeper understanding of computer science. C/C++, on the other hand, really force you to consider the effects of *everything* you do, which I think results in much more robust programmers (in general, at least), as a result.

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