Who needs C++

[swgh]

OK my turn

I have a good friend at universty who loved C++ like me but was really struggling with pointers and claases. I did all I could to explain the concepts to him but he just couldn't get it. I even tried tutoring him privaltely, He thought this was always right:

cout << * << pointer << ** << " ":

Madness I know! So after weeks of pursuading him not to quit programming for good as he found everything after functions and program flow to complexing, I managed to talk him into taking a part time C course. Which he is curreently on at the moment. He is doing rather well, and is enjoying it more than the C++ one. I only know basic C concepts myself as Im more C++, but I am able to help him if he gets stuck. So I feel like I acheived somthing in helping him out of a sticky patch in his life.

The whole point of this is, as suggested above, there is no reason why it can be consiered bad to revert from C++ to C. Both langauges are simuilar in concepts ( sort of ) and they use syntax that some people find eaier on C than C++. So if anyone out there is thinking of what kanguage to choose, C or C++, weigh the reasons why you want C++ over C, ( ie: game develi0pment is one ) and select the langauge appripriate. There is also nothing wrong with learning both.

[zacs7]

Plus doing quick kernel patches on *nix is a breeze if C is your native language

[psychopath]

Oh yes it has. The engine code has not been released. The game code has been released. It is for free on id Software's website, and that is what I was referring to.

I couldn't find it on the Id website, but browsing through FTP I found it. I'll have to check that out when I get home.

[DavidP]

There is also nothing wrong with learning both.

I completely agree. Although I would say C++ is more "native" to me, I know C just as well as I know C++ quite honestly. It is useful to know both, especially since you interleave them and use them interchangeably very often.

[edit]

I couldn't find it on the Id website, but browsing through FTP I found it. I'll have to check that out when I get home.

yeah you have to go to the "Technology Downloads" page, and then there should be some link that takes you to the id Software FTP page, and from there you can download it all.

Here is an easier way to get to it all:

http://www.iddevnet.com/

[/edit]

[maxorator]

C++, however, IMHO, suffers by being overly complex, difficult to understand and often the execution model, how it actually get's translated to machine code and what the actual program control structure is, is highly obfuscated.

There are some tricks how C++ gets translated into machine code. Once you've learned the tricks there's not much "highly obfuscated" anymore.

So what are the real alternatives to a serious programmer who doesn't want to use C++, but likes the efficiency of C?

Who said you need an alternative to C?

After playing around with various development models I have come to find that the paradigm used in gaming development these days is quite powerful. The low level, number crunching code is written in C or even assembler and the high level logic and configuration logic is often left to an embedded scripting language such as lua.

At least 3D stuff is mainly done with classes nowadays.

I program in C++, but I don't use much C++-specific stuff. So the result will only have some minor differencies compared to C.

Madness I know! So after weeks of pursuading him not to quit programming for good as he found everything after functions and program flow to complexing, I managed to talk him into taking a part time C course. Which he is curreently on at the moment. He is doing rather well, and is enjoying it more than the C++ one. I only know basic C concepts myself as Im more C++, but I am able to help him if he gets stuck. So I feel like I acheived somthing in helping him out of a sticky patch in his life.

Yup, low-level stuff usually isn't so complex at all. Some years ago I though about Assembly like "OMG it's the freaking complexx haxxorz code". But actually it is the most logical thing ever. Oh, oops, there's no logic there, there are just instructions - I don't even have to think much (unless I'm trying to reverse engineer it), I just know what each instruction does and there are no gotchas nor side effects.

Now I'm basically more of a reverse engineerer and program "editor". Nothing seems to be more fun to me than "how it's done elsewhere". That's why I visit these forums so rarely lately.

Ewww, what kind of a life form would revert back to C from C++, when you actually have a choice?

No references - Eeek!
No operator overloading - Egad!
No exceptions - Oh teh noes!
No templates - Oh crap!
No RAII - OMFG!
No std library - AAARGH!
I can't take it any more ... Somebody make this madness stop!

Seriously, who wants to go back to the dark ages?!

Those things are so useless. If I would have a choice I wouldn't use any of those mentioned features of C++. Luckily I have a choice. Dark ages aka the age when programming was an art. Nowadays' style is blind programming. I admit this stuff can be useful. But the problem is that it is used in too many different places. Different types of programs should have different type of data management. At the moment everything is just mixed together.

Basically if you don't use C++-specific stuff in your program, it's almost the same as C (if not exactly).

Limits? I'd say C is fairly unlimited, rather than limited. Granted, it takes more code to sometimes accomplish what you want, and it might be more complex than other languages, but that's the usual tradeoff you get: simplicity or power.

Hey! C IS simple . Once you have an idea how you're going to do it it's so so simple.

I'm stupid.