The future of C++

[tinytroon]

Hello all,

I'm currently researching my degree dissertation. Loosley titled 'C++ is it passed its sell by date'. The idea being to discover if C++ is being overtaken by other less complex languages when designing and writing applications from scratch. Is C++ merely now a tool for tuning applications already written in C++? Has C++ popularity waned in recent years?

So what is the general concensus on this subject? Any replies would be much appreciated as an initial springboard for my research.

Cheers.

[quzah]

The initial springboard for your research.

Quzah.

[Salem]

> So what is the general concensus on this subject?
Go check out various jobsites and see how many want C++ skills compared to say Intercal (or whatever else you want to compare with) skills.

Consider that Cobol and Fortran are some 30 years older than C++, yet they seem to be as popular as ever in the niches they occupy.

> designing and writing applications from scratch.
That depends entirely on your application - the world does not run on 2GHz P4 machines with 512MB of memory and a windows OS. You're not going to have VB on your mobile phone anytime soon are you.

[Iamien]

I dont want VB on my PC never mind my Phone :P
C++ , in my humble opinion , is not goign too loose ground for a good while yet. You look at the alternatives , and you are hard pressed to find a none propreiatary <sp> language , where you can get as much suport for it as you can with c++. The sheer amount of C++ used for companies and the like, as well as hobiests , shows you the vast size of its user base, which is at heart one of the best reasons to use the language. NOt only do get and incrediably power language, that has the ability to inlien assembly and other things that onyl add to the power, you can write portable code, you get many sites, just like this one, with people to help you when your stuck.
this is just my opinion, i dont see programming as something that should be easy. Languages that try to make things easy <VB for instance> insulate you from having any access to power. It bad when the language developers have to protect the programmers from themselve, and then the programmers have to protect users from themselve :P