Printable View
I am not to sure where to put this post but here goes, i have been programming in other languages such as visual basic for sometime now and feel its time to move on to something else such C/C++.
Which would be better to learn? I am sorry if this is a well asked question. This is my first post also :).
It depends on why you want to learn another language and what you want to do with it. Either would be a perfectly valid choice in general.
C is old and not object oriented. I'd go with C++ first. The basics of both languages are the same anyways, so you'll actually be learning both at the same time. C++ is also virtually the same as Java, so if you wanted to move to Java and you know C++, it's a walk in the park.
>> The basics of both languages are the same anyways, so you'll actually be learning both at the same time.
But the techniques and best practices for each are different enough that you really should consider them separate languages.
Go ahead and learn C++.
C is essentially a subset of C++, so if you know all of C++, then you know C too.
The main conceptual difference is that C++ is object oriented. If you only learned C++, and no other programming languages, you would not know how to write a C program, because you can't use classes & objects in a C program. In your case, you already know how to write procedural (non object oriented) programs.
There are several things that make C++ "easier" than C (you can do things with less lines of code). But overall, C++ is more complicated/complex... There is just more to the language. In fact, it's so complex that you can't even find a reference book that covers the entire ANSI/ISO C++ language, except for the language standard itself!
In case you don't know this already, there is nothing "visual" in ANSI/ISO C++. All GUI/Graphics are done with additional 3rd-party libraries. So, most "students" start-out with command line programs to get a good grasp of standard C++ before moving-on to graphical programs. (And, "Visual C++" is not a language, it's the name of Microsoft's C++ compiler. Of course, it includes the additinal libraries for making GUI programs.)Quote:
...i have been programming in other languages such as visual basic for sometime now...
Nor is there a single complete and fully compliant implementation (read: compiler + standard library) of C++.Quote:
Originally Posted by DougDbug
I'd say that for proper advice, we need the answer to Daved's question: What is the purpose of learning another language, what type of applications/machines are you thinking of working on?
Almost every type of application can be programmed in either C or C++, but some tend to match better in one than the other.
As to the comments that C++ is based on C, thus if you know 100% of C++, you also know C - that is true and false at the same time. Yes, if you know 100% of C++, you can understand C. But writing code in C++ is very different from writing code in C - well, at least if you use C++ as it was intended to be used, rather than as a "slightly better C compiler".
--
Mats
It's a bit like Spanish and Italian. The languages are similar enough that if you know one very well, you'll be able to sort of understand the other. Doesn't mean you can speak it, though.
Thanks for all the help, i would be hoping to use C++ for programming games and other useful software once i understand the language.
C++ is quite often used for games, and is very suitable for that. Likewise for other "PC" applications.
C is often used for smaller projects and for embedded products for example.
--
Mats
I will start with the lessons on cprogramming and see how i get on.
This is also a decent one.
That site's moved up a bit.
Thanks Yarin that site looks really good.