What's wrong with C++ as a first language?

I've read a lot of debate, both here and elsewhere about the problems with C++ in general (I still like it, even though I'll be moving on to other languages when I've gotten more competent). However much some people dislike the language being used at all, there seems to be even more opposition to the idea of it being a newbie's first programming language.

Well, I'm a newbie and C++ is the first language I've decided to try. So far it's been a lot of fun for me, and while I haven't gotten into the nitty gritty of real programming like creating classes, understanding inheritance and the like, I'm enjoying the learning curve immensely.

I've heard that it's too low level (better to hide the inner workings from people who don 't know what they're doing). I've heard that it's too demanding in terms of precise syntax (why punish programmers for missing a single semi-colon?). I've heard it takes too long to produce truly impressive results (it's just too generalist). I've heard these and a dozen other warnings; at the risk of sounding thick-headed, most of them seem to boil down to
"C++ is a pain in the neck, and if you've never programmed before it'll put you off for good."

I'm the kill of bull-headed masochist who'll spend weeks boring into a problem until I beat it, if for no reason but the sheer spite of it. Finicky syntax and blood-boiling bugs will irritate me, but not enough to quit programming altogether. If frustration headaches, delayed gratification and general information overload are all I have to worry about, I'm sticking with C++ as my introduction to the world of programming.(Then maybe Python or LISP)

The people here have a lot of experience with the language, and while the results might be a little biased (I'm guessing most of you enjoy using C++ to some degree), I'd like to know if the experts could give me any other reasons to start with another language aside from the fact I might pull my hair out. Am I going to develop any bad coding habits? Will it hurt my understanding of programs in general? I'll switch to one of the more popular first languages if this is going to make me a bad programmer somehow, or hurt my ability to understand other languages, but if it's just about the difficulty curve, well... :3

I would actually argue that the best language to learn to program in is C. It has a simple syntax, is relatively easy to learn, and is very powerful.

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I've heard these and a dozen other warnings; at the risk of sounding thick-headed, most of them seem to boil down to
"C++ is a pain in the neck, and if you've never programmed before it'll put you off for good."

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Yep, that's pretty much it. So if you don't mind that, you don't need to worry.

I think this should be moved to General Programming.

Personally I didn't learn C++ as the first language (second, if not to count an aborted attempt to learn C++ from the tutorial that comes with DevCpp - which IIRC turns out to be a bad C tutorial in the first place.)

I think one of the greatest reasons is that you want to learn to think like a programmer (describe algorithms in terms of if's and for's and then perhaps some classes and like). The problems with C++ is that for really basic things you'll need to know a lot of technicalities that have nothing to do with training structured thinking. Add to that, that many mistakes lead to undefined behaviour - you might not even be aware that something is wrong, and if you come painfully aware of that, you might not be able to identify what went wrong, as undefined behaviour can make arbitrary piece of code crash or fail.

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I've heard that it's too demanding in terms of precise syntax (why punish programmers for missing a single semi-colon?).

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Not too sure about that: which language is not demanding in precise syntax (e.g Python punishes you for a missing space)?

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I've heard it takes too long to produce truly impressive results (it's just too generalist).

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Your first GUI tutorial that comes with C# lets you make your own browser :) ... (I suspect it's just an IE widget, though, and the loading time of the first page was enormous.)

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but if it's just about the difficulty curve, well...

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That's entirely up to you.

Once you know one or two languages, picking up others will be a lot faster, though.

I used a dialect of BASIC as my first language (put the stones down please)

It was a modern BASIC though and OOP so it did teach me the very basics of classes and such.....BUT I have always wanted to learn C++

Im what you call a "hobbiest programmer" and so Im not the most advanced programmer but Im enjoying learnig C++

I probably should have tried C++ alot sooner but I listened to people and was scared away from trying....now I regret not trying C++ sooner

The only "faults" of C++ as I see it are:
- Too much undefined stuff. If something is undefined, then don't allow it or warn if it's used. Compilers do not. It's a pain.
- C++ has a lot of power and flexibility and with power comes responsibility. There is a lot and I mean a LOT of bad practices that you should avoid. It takes years to learn them all.
- No easy GUI programming. There is no standard way of writing GUI code. You have to rely on 3rd party libraries. Of course, if you get to know them, and if you find a good one, then GUI programming isn't difficult at all. It's just that finding such a library might be difficult.

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Originally Posted by bithub

I would actually argue that the best language to learn to program in is C. It has a simple syntax, is relatively easy to learn, and is very powerful.

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I agree, learning C is very easy, then learn the C++ extensions. Although I must say that you should learn to write C that is C++ compatible from the beginning (i.e. strong typecasting). So learn C by coding in a C++ environment, that way you don't learn a lot of bad habits that latter need to be unlearned (like I did).

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Originally Posted by meganewbie

It was a modern BASIC though and OOP so it did teach me the very basics of classes and such.....BUT I have always wanted to learn C++

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OOP BASIC? Must be some abomination of nature like VB, which isnt BASIC at all.

(are you saying C++ is like spidey?)

All these discussions are theoretically. I would like to hear from professionall programmers what is the marketing value of each language. What do companies ask for today?

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Originally Posted by abachler

I agree, learning C is very easy, then learn the C++ extensions. Although I must say that you should learn to write C that is C++ compatible from the beginning (i.e. strong typecasting). So learn C by coding in a C++ environment, that way you don't learn a lot of bad habits that latter need to be unlearned (like I did).

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Totally agreed. I would say start from C++ without its OOP features. Then you are at the point that you could use C++ to learn OOP and use C for more low-level machine stuff

I would say learn C++ right away. If you are not going to use C, then don't learn it. C is an old, difficult language that is not up to today's standards. Why bother learning something such when you are not going to use it?

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Originally Posted by Elysia

I would say learn C++ right away. If you are not going to use C, then don't learn it. C is an old, difficult language that is not up to today's standards. Why bother learning something such when you are not going to use it?

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C is an integral part of C++, you cant use C++ without using some C.

if is C
switch is C
struct is C
while is C
int main() is C
any function call that isnt into a member function of some class is C

The member functions themselves are C, although they contain non-C code if they reference class objects.

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int main() is C

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Isn't it int main(void)?

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any function call that isnt into a member function of some class is C

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What about overloaded functions?

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Originally Posted by anon

Isn't it int main(void)?

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int main() is int main(void) same thing in both C and C++

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What about overloaded functions?

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Well, its hard to overload a function without the base version of it being C

There are limits on function overloading in C, namely you have to have a different number of arguments, so it isn't full bore C++ style overloading.

Most modern compilers will implement full function overloading anyway though even though it isn't technically part of the C standard.

In what sense are they C? In the same sense as all C++ is just machine code?

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Originally Posted by anon

In what sense are they C? In the same sense as all C++ is just machine code?

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In the sense that C++ isnt a language, it is a language extension of C. Much as I love it and use it. But to say don't learn C learn C++ isn't really helpful, as you need to know C to use C++. And in real world application development most employers will get frustrated if you try writing all your code in C++, as not only will development time increase and performance suffer, but the code that is written in a purist style will be difficult to maintain spaghetti code. Maybe YOU can write purist code that isn't spaghetti, but 99.9% of purists cannot. I don't know if it's because most purists are java-heads who learned C/C++ as a second language and try to write C/C++ like they wrote java, or if its just what schools are teaching these days. As a professional software engineer, with my roots in EE (i.e. hardware), I can tell you that if its what the schools are teaching, they are doing their students a great dis-service.

BTW, the schools I have looked at do in fact teach purist design and teach java exclusively, or prior to C/C++, which is bass ackwards. You should start out with low level languages first, then teach higher level languages, not the other way around.

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Originally Posted by abachler

C is an integral part of C++, you cant use C++ without using some C.

if is C
switch is C
struct is C
while is C
int main() is C
any function call that isnt into a member function of some class is C

The member functions themselves are C, although they contain non-C code if they reference class objects.

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No, they are C++. Albeit C-style C++.
The point is, however, that you should not learn C before C++.
However, by learning C++, you will also learn of these elements it inherited from C. This is a good thing.
However, learning C before will just make things worse once you learn C++, because they are basically different programming paradigms.

What do you mean by purism, something like the real world example of converting Roman to Arabic on this page?

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Originally Posted by anon

What do you mean by purism, something like the real world example of converting Roman to Arabic on this page?

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An application written entirely with classes. Everything is an object, there is little to no procedural programming present. You end up with hundreds of member functions each of which executes fewer than a half dozen functions, usually only 1 or 2. We had to throw an application away once because it was just faster and cheaper to rewrite it, although in that case I think it was intentionally obfuscated by a former employee.

C++ isn't all about "pure" OOP anyway. That's Java.

There is nothing wrong with learning C++ as your first language. I learned DOS BASIC first but I would not call that OOP by any stretch of the imagination. VB is also not true OOP since MS tried to take a procedural language and turn it into OOP and ended up with a mess in the end.

I would be willing to say that if C++ turns you off to programming then any other language eventually will as well. I would not recommend learning C first since when you make the transition to C++ you will have to change your mindset completely which isn't easy to do.

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Originally Posted by Elysia

C++ isn't all about "pure" OOP anyway. That's Java.

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I agree, which is why I think java programmers who try to program in C++ should be shot, buried, then dug up and shot again to make sure.

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I agree, which is why I think java programmers who try to program in C++ should be shot, buried, then dug up and shot again to make sure.

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Tell us how you really feel and don't hold back anything.

I tend to agree, however, after working and talking with several Java programmers who are now using C++. The transition is not simple at all and a lot of Java-ish practices have to change to be efficient at C++. This is why I feel our uni's are ripping students off by removing C++ from the curriculum. It is very hard, nigh impossible, to find a C++ programmer right out of college these days. Most feel that since they know Java they somehow automatically know C++ -- which sounds good but unfortunately is not true.

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Originally Posted by Bubba

Tell us how you really feel and don't hold back anything.

I tend to agree, however, after working and talking with several Java programmers who are now using C++. The transition is not simple at all and a lot of Java-ish practices have to change to be efficient at C++. This is why I feel our uni's are ripping students off by removing C++ from the curriculum. It is very hard, nigh impossible, to find a C++ programmer right out of college these days. Most feel that since they know Java they somehow automatically know C++ -- which sounds good but unfortunately is not true.

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What about C# programmers going C++? Does the same thing happen there with bad practices? I have more experience in C# than I have in C++, but not much in either. I've only felt that C# has helped me understand OOP better, but I might be subconsciously using bad practices from it in C++ - or is Java better at ruining that for you than C#?

First of all, I just want to say that there is nothing at all wrong with learning C++ as a first language. It may be difficult to master every single aspect of the language, but by no means does that somehow make it unsuitable for beginners. The standard template library makes things easy, as well, since it frees the programmer from having to work directly with raw char* strings and arrays, and so writing bug-free code isn't really that difficult, right from the start. That said, there are certainly much 'easier' languages available to newcomers, but IMO, not nearly as rewarding (generally speaking, of course) as starting out with such a powerful language. Case in point, I've noticed that the transition from C++ to other languages tends to be much easier than vice versa. I do realize that it's a contentious subject, of course, so I just want to stress that such a conclusion is, quite naturally, highly subjective. :p

Noone will ever master every aspect of C++ or any other language for that matter. I've been programming computers for nearly 30 years, and in C/C++ for 15, and there are still areas of the language that I have never had to use, let alone master.

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Originally Posted by abachler

Noone will ever master every aspect of C++ or any other language for that matter.

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I don't know - it took me about a hour and a half to master BASIC, and I'm pretty sure I didn't miss anything. :p

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Originally Posted by abachler

I've been programming computers for nearly 30 years, and in C/C++ for 15, and there are still areas of the language that I have never had to use, let alone master.

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You look too young to be 50, abachler. Unless you're saying you started programming when you were, like, 10. :D

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Originally Posted by Sebastiani

You look too young to be 50, abachler. Unless you're saying you started programming when you were, like, 10. :D

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Is starting at a rather young age really that hard to believe?

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Originally Posted by iMalc

Is starting at a rather young age really that hard to believe?

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Maybe not these days, but back in 1979 I think that would have been an exceptional case. In fact, the first PC I ever saw was like, back in 1983, and the owner had one simply because she was a chemist and needed it for work-related processing. And it wasn't at least another 10 years before I noticed anyone else having one. Hell, I didn't even own, much less know how to use, a computer until maybe '98 or '99! I was a bit behind, though. :p

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Originally Posted by Sebastiani

Maybe not these days, but back in 1979 I think that would have been an exceptional case. In fact, the first PC I ever saw was like, back in 1983, and the owner had one simply because she was a chemist and needed it for work-related processing. And it wasn't at least another 10 years before I noticed anyone else having one. Hell, I didn't even own, much less know how to use, a computer until maybe '98 or '99! I was a bit behind, though. :p

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Holy ........ - I had actually tried programming by then. Started having fun with the scripts in the old game gone freeware, Dink Smallwood.

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Originally Posted by Sebastiani

I don't know - it took me about a hour and a half to master BASIC, and I'm pretty sure I didn't miss anything. :p

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Woot, i stand corrected... Commodore BASIC FTW!!!

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You look too young to be 50, abachler. Unless you're saying you started programming when you were, like, 10. :D

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Actually I was 9. I have a picture around here somewhere of me with my VIC-20, Ill have to dig it up.

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Originally Posted by abachler

Woot, i stand corrected... Commodore BASIC FTW!!!
Actually I was 9. I have a picture around here somewhere of me with my VIC-20, Ill have to dig it up.

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Heh, I actually had to google that. Pretty impressive specs, too:

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Originally Posted by Wikipedia

It was equipped with only 5 KB of RAM (of this, only 3583 Bytes were available to the user) and used the same MOS 6502 CPU as the PET.

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Why on earth would you need that much RAM, anyway? :D

Anyway, at 9, that's pretty amazing. I don't think I could have grokked such a thing so young. In fact, if it didn't involve like lizards or GI Joe, you could safely assume that it was out of my league...:p

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Originally Posted by abachler

OOP BASIC? Must be some abomination of nature like VB, which isnt BASIC at all.

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Well...it is called REALbasic...
I like the language and it did help me understand programming BUT it is also a RAD/IDE so I always felt I was missing out on really understanding alot of stuff.

There is nothing wrong with RAD/IDE's...just for me (personally) I always felt I was missing core understanding

and Like I said I have always wanted to learn and understand C++...even at a "hobbiest level"

Call it self achievment I guess??

Nothing wrong with hobbyists either. I am a hobby programmer for C++ and have come to a huge understanding, especially due to hanging out on these boards.
They are probably the best source of learning C or C++ :p

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Originally Posted by Elysia

Nothing wrong with hobbyists either. I am a hobby programmer for C++ and have come to a huge understanding, especially due to hanging out on these boards.
They are probably the best source of learning C or C++ :p

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That is awsome!

Thank you for the info!

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Originally Posted by meganewbie

Well...it is called REALbasic...
I like the language and it did help me understand programming BUT it is also a RAD/IDE so I always felt I was missing out on really understanding alot of stuff.

There is nothing wrong with RAD/IDE's...just for me (personally) I always felt I was missing core understanding

and Like I said I have always wanted to learn and understand C++...even at a "hobbiest level"

Call it self achievment I guess??

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Well, for RAD I prefer LabView™, but it interfaces very nicely with C/C++, well, really any language that can create standalone DLL's. Its great for doing all the GUI stuff that I hate (doing). So I can hack up my core functionality in C/C++ then just write the UI in LabView and tie the two together.

Hobbyists are absolutely the way to go. I started as a hobbyist, and I got my EE because I wanted to understand computers at the component level. I think as a hobbyist you end up knowing more because you often go off i directions that a CS program might not take you. Taking some CS courses is good too, but after a point they become so redundant that the only reason to take them is to get your bonafides.

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Originally Posted by abachler

Well, for RAD I prefer LabView™, but it interfaces very nicely with C/C++, well, really any language that can create standalone DLL's. Its great for doing all the GUI stuff that I hate (doing).

Hobbyists are absolutely the way to go. I started as a hobbyist, and I got my EE because I wanted to understand computers at the component level. I think as a hobbyist you end up knowing more because you often go off i directions that a CS program might not take you. Taking some CS courses is good too, but after a point they become so redundant that the only reason to take them is to get your bonafides.

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Never heard of LabView...I will investigate it.

Well I will admit I am not a Uni grad...I have never been to college
Yes I might venture some day...but now I have house payment and full time job and blah blah...I know...excuses right :-)

I did take effort and got CompTIA A+...Network+ and Security+ certified...and also Took some MS exams...so Im MS pro certified...but only did that because I wanted to...my job doesnt require it and those are some of the "things" I had on my "life to do list"

C++ is one of them :-)

Yeah I remember when that A+ crap started, I already had an EE and years of experience repairing computers, but I actually had a few jobs turn their noses up at an EE degree because it wasn't an A+ certification. Kinda like not hiring a licensed surgeon because he doesn't have his first aid card.

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Originally Posted by Sebastiani

Anyway, at 9, that's pretty amazing. I don't think I could have grokked such a thing so young. In fact, if it didn't involve like lizards or GI Joe, you could safely assume that it was out of my league...:p

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Well, I was a computer nerd from the start.

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Originally Posted by abachler

Yeah I remember when that A+ crap started, I already had an EE and years of experience repairing computers, but I actually had a few jobs turn their noses up at an EE degree because it wasn't an A+ certification. Kinda like not hiring a licensed surgeon because he doesn't have his first aid card.

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Hee hee

totally understand...

BUT like I said I only took all those tests because it was something I promised myself I would do.

I dont advertise to my current job that I have those certs...actually they dont even know...
only the cboard knows now (background "ohhh ahhhhhh" sound please)

I'd have to say that C or C++ is probably a good place to start learning programming. They may not be the best, handed down from some holy mountain with the demand that we start with them, but I started that way.

I feel that C++ or C make good beginning languages because they don't hide anything. There's no garbage collection, and you get to deal with raw pointers, memory addresses, etc. If you started out in Java, for example, switching to C++ would be complicated, at the very least, because of Java's garbage collection. This memory management also gives you a feel for what's going on behind the scenes, should you switch to Java.

I suppose I must end my comment by saying that I myself am a hobby programmer, and I started with C++. I'm no expert by any means, but I write the silly little programs I need to. Mod tools and the like is what I'm doing.

>>memory management also gives you a feel for what's going on behind the scenes, should you switch to Java.

Absolutely. My first intro to programming class was taught in C++, and I loved it. The next level course (where you learn classes) at the same school was taught in Java. Confused the ever-loving s--t out of me.

Make a long story short, I went to another school that taught that same level two course but in C++. Loved it.

The point is the explicit OOP that C++ demands is invaluable for actually learning OOP. Knowing how to allocate/delete memory, and how to move pointers around will give you a much deeper understanding of what's going on inside the guts of a program.

Where I work, about half of our development team has never written anything in a c-style language. Now, having learned in C++, I can dissect the VB nonsense with relative ease, though they can't understand a lick of my C#. Not to mention that they all manage to have picked up very very bad programming habits, and generally write code that gives me and a few other competent developers a good laugh.

Abachler, I agree with you about these java peeps, because it's so "easy" to develop in java, it's usually the best course to re-write bad java programs from scratch, instead of trying to figure out what some very misguided developer did because they just have no idea of how to properly use classes and the such.

C++ forces you to have structure in your programs, structure that makes sense. You learn, really learn, what OOP is all about (becasue after all, OOP, regradless of language, boils down to encap., inherit., and polymorphism., not making sure every darned data type came from a single object.) There's nothing wrong w/java or c#, but if that's what you learn in, I personally think you're missing out on some much needed understanding of basic programming concepts.

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C++ forces you to have structure in your programs, structure that makes sense.

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How does it do that?

I was going to ask the same thing. If you wanted to, you could write a program with no classes, and no functions other than the main function. I shudder at the thought of doing such a thing for most of the programs I've written, but I suppose it would be possible.

Maybe "forced structure" was a bad choice of words.

What I mean is sometimes in languages like C# or Java, you rely so heavily on built-in "nice-ities" that you get away from relying on yourself to do basic things. That's all well and good, but sometimes it feels like something is missing. I don't know, I can't explain it.

I can tell you from my experience that learning C++ in high school was one of the best things I've ever done. I started BASIC programming on the Apple II at about 11 years old, and did that for a while, then got my feet wet with procedural programming in QBasic, then a friend gave me an old version of Borland C++ when I was a junior in HS. This was back in the days of DOS 6.22 and windows 3.1(1). C++ didn't even have templates yet at that time. I have now worked with C, C++, C#, Python and PHP, and I can say without a doubt that, had I not learned C++ first, I would not have picked up the other languages as easily.

On a side note, there was mention of RealBasic and LabVIEW, and I have used FreeBASIC from time to time, and find it to be quite useful. It uses nearly identical syntax to QBasic, but adds classes and other OO features, without the typical MS bastardization. There are ports of wxWidgets and GTK+ for it, and since it's basically a front end for GCC, it has good interoperability with code from other gcc compilers.