Why to Love/Hate C++

[LaRoza]

what ever happened to your borg queen avatar...felt like something different?

That was gone a while ago I have no avatar or custom title at the moment. I've forsaken everything but tech support on this forum.

anyway...i really see why C++ is so bad anyway...probably because i havnt used it enough, and pointers are a little confusing...but its not like im having my toenail ripped off, basted in butter, deep fried, and fed to me

Pointers are nothing.

[jimi_hendrix]

That was gone a while ago I have no avatar or custom title at the moment. I've forsaken everything but tech support on this forum.

why no avatar? the borg thing was slightly intimidating...

Pointers are nothing.

i recently mastered them (i think)

[pavel989]

after about page 5, i got bored and came to this conclusion:

ABSOLUTLY NO ONE, !!!NO ONE!!!, CAN PROVE A LANGUAGE'S SUPERIORITY.

personally, i hate C++. its so ugly, and there are a lot of features that i dont understand uses of. Granted, I am a newb (or at least i think), but dammit, it can do just about anything.

I've fiddled with VB, C#, python, ruby, small amount of Java (very small, might come back to it...), BASIC, and C++.

I am not good at any of them, because I was using them only to learn, to find what language is ultimate. and to me they're all the same, except their usage;

im not using C++ for a web app, and im not using ruby for a game, but 5+5 works in either one of them.

But in my travels, the one question has always been speed. If you're programming, you can probably learn to get past syntax (I did...)


so for someone like me, it comes down to this:
what does lisp or C++ have over the other, that would make it so much better?
- so far, ive found that anything can be implemented in either, so it wouldnt matter which you use, so long as u can understand it.

[pavel989]

bah

[LaRoza]

after about page 5, i got bored and came to this conclusion:

ABSOLUTLY NO ONE, !!!NO ONE!!!, CAN PROVE A LANGUAGE'S SUPERIORITY.

And yet, we can prove a language is inferior, when given the context.

[CptPicard]

ABSOLUTLY NO ONE, !!!NO ONE!!!, CAN PROVE A LANGUAGE'S SUPERIORITY.

In general terms, we can easily discuss a language's suitability to general problem-solving. The fact that people have been creating new languages that are progressively better (starting from wiring up their CPUs physically), shows that there indeed is some kind of continuum.

personally, i hate C++. its so ugly, and there are a lot of features that i dont understand uses of. Granted, I am a newb (or at least i think), but dammit, it can do just about anything.

Likewise. It's ugly and has lots of features you have to "manage" and "know how to use". The general retort by (very skilled C++ hackers) that thing X is doable if <pages of explanation> is proof positive that C++ is relatively complex.

On the other hand I never felt like it really gave me anything substantial over many other languages. It can't "do just about anything" when I compare it to a lot of high-level languages. I miss my closures in particular...

I am not good at any of them, because I was using them only to learn, to find what language is ultimate. and to me they're all the same, except their usage;

You've been fiddling mostly with languages of the same family... Ruby has potential to enlighten you of the real differences

But in my travels, the one question has always been speed. If you're programming, you can probably learn to get past syntax (I did...)

So you're in the crowd who claims that all language differences are superficial and are just ways to write down syntax differently? As I said, with Java/C#/C++ you may come to such a conclusion, and there you would be mostly right (with the distinction that C++ is needlessly "hard").

Otherwise the claim is harder to defend... and because in more non-trivial cases such as using tail-recursion in Scheme to express loops, for example, of course the underlying computational concept is the same, but when you know how to use it in Scheme you also have learned an important lesson about computations in general -- it's not just typing up the loop differently (and if you claimed that, you don't understand the concept).

what does lisp or C++ have over the other, that would make it so much better?

Lisp most importantly has a very minimal, homoinonic syntax expressed in the language's fundamental data structure -- list made up of cons pairs -- that allows for arbitrary code manipulation and usage of arbitrary native data structures as code (as long as they do represent valid code), runtime compilation, runtime evaluation (scripting), a REPL, a multiple-dispatch functional-object-system, closures, continuations (either natively in Scheme or through code transformer in CL), strong support for functional programming but also allowing for imperative-style parts where you want them...

C++ has nothing of these. Instead it has a rigid static type system that is mostly used to build OO architectures which require a lot of design just to get them off the ground

- so far, ive found that anything can be implemented in either, so it wouldnt matter which you use, so long as u can understand it.

Only in theory... in practice, it's nicer to actually have languages that come half way in the human programmer's direction.

[Sockerdrickan]

I love c++ but I don't like GCC's way of telling me

/usr/include/c++/4.3/istream:123: note: candidates are: std::basic_istream<_CharT, _Traits>& std::basic_istream<_CharT, _Traits>::operator>>(std::basic_istream<_CharT, _Traits>& (*)(std::basic_istream<_CharT, _Traits>&)) [with _CharT = char, _Traits = std::char_traits<char>] <near match>
/usr/include/c++/4.3/istream:127: note:                 std::basic_istream<_CharT, _Traits>& std::basic_istream<_CharT, _Traits>::operator>>(std::basic_ios<_CharT, _Traits>& (*)(std::basic_ios<_CharT, _Traits>&)) [with _CharT = char, _Traits = std::char_traits<char>] <near match>
/usr/include/c++/4.3/istream:134: note:                 std::basic_istream<_CharT, _Traits>& std::basic_istream<_CharT, _Traits>::operator>>(std::ios_base& (*)(std::ios_base&)) [with _CharT = char, _Traits = std::char_traits<char>] <near match>
/usr/include/c++/4.3/istream:242: note:                 std::basic_istream<_CharT, _Traits>& std::basic_istream<_CharT, _Traits>::operator>>(std::basic_streambuf<_CharT, _Traits>*) [with _CharT = char, _Traits = std::char_traits<char>] <near match>

[Kilon]

You are not a real programmer until you master Assembly.

My problem was not to like C++, actually I do, however I did not like the lbraries for C++. And that is I believe something we do not take into account. For example , I loved C++ and I used for a few MSDOS programms but when I made the jump to WINDOWS programming and I saw MFC I said deinetely no. Specially designing GUI has a huge pain , alot of information which I do not want to use, to many step for doing the simplest thing. I really did not want to abandon C++ but I knew that MFC was a huge obstacle for me. The I Found Delphi , Delphi was not only an easier language , it had the best libraries and the best ide, it was the first language to support to OO in all his Stricture and some of the Best RAD tools. It is no Mistake that .NET and JAVA copy his well known VLC library.

From there on I learned my lesson , a programming language is much more than simple syntax.

[Sockerdrickan]

From there on I learned my lesson , a programming language is much more than simple syntax.

or complex syntax.

[nvteighen]

ABSOLUTLY NO ONE, !!!NO ONE!!!, CAN PROVE A LANGUAGE'S SUPERIORITY.

Yes we can, if the language is artificial and given a certain context. Why? Well, I'm writing a paper on this right now but my argument basically is the following:

Artificial languages always have a function besides the language's general function of communication. For example, Tolkien's languages serve to communicate (in a fictional world) and also for improving his works aesthetically. C++ is there to communicate a certain algorithm between people and also to have an OOP, generic, low-level programming language etc.

So, you can compare that "second" function, as it is measurable whether the language does it well or not in some context; also, the general communication function is always acomplished when the language is a language (i.e. a system of signs), so it makes no sense to compare languages with respect to it.

Hope it makes sense to you.