What do you all think about C++? I'm just starting off on programming and was going to use C++ as my first. When it comes to programming, I know little to nothing about the technical, in-depth details. In some places (mainly /prog/), I've heard C++ isn't all that great and isn't worth learning. But again, what do you all think?
If you'd like to learn C++, that's fine, but not as a first language.
C++ is fiendishly complicated, and it takes a lot of work to do very little; it's not a tool meant for neophytes. Starting with C++ will probably only confuse and demoralize you.
Oh, I see... so, something like Python would be better, then?
I'm not a fan of Python, but yes, Python is a good choice. It has a relatively simple surface and a plethora of libraries, so you'll get a lot done with little effort.
C++ is a terrible language from every possible aspect.
So many C/C++ hatersô☺Vx0♦(1TxT1A É1A L ↕ |3@ ¼ L ↕ |3@ ¼@8 ♦P$"\↕ ┤'TxÇ ↕
> Why is that, though? That's what I was wondering.
c++ is objects tacked on to the side of an old (pre-ansi) version of c. actually not really tacked on, it's more like they just smashed them into each other and hoped they'd stick together somehow.
c++ is so bad there are about a million languages that are designed to be a "better c++" (java, d, objective c, c#, etc.)
If you want to do it, I say just go for it and don't let anybody discourage you. There is some difficult stuff that arises from the amount of control that it gives you, but you will learn a lot about how the compiler works and how memory management works by screwing up so much. If you want this sort of challenge, go for it. When I started really programming (like, studying it in college, around 1995-1996), they'd teach you Pascal as a sort of primer, and move you to C (you'd do a lot of that), and you'd have like one class of C++ to teach you object-oriented programming. Java was something "new" (yes, I know it had been around since 1990 or whatever) and "hot" at the time, but I remember thinking that I didn't like how much it did for you (garbage collection) and that it was too easy. Someone at the consulting company where I worked later was teaching us Java 1.2 and they were talking about how they were deprecating things from Java 1.1 to prevent people from writing code that had too many bugs in it, and I thought that that was lame that they were going so far to prevent you from "shooting yourself in the foot". I'm not trying to get in that argument now, but that's where I was when I was 22 years old. The point is that in a few short months, you can be at that point where Java looks too easy, and not be scared of C++. People weren't scared of it then, and there's no reason to be scared of it now. A lot of these languages people are suggesting to you didn't even exist, or were unpopular back when C++ was the most common object-oriented programming language. People back then didn't need a stepping stone to C++ like all these people are telling you that you need now. They did just fine.
Actually the only advice I'd give you other than to learn C++ is to learn C first. You might gain a better appreciation of objects after you've worked a while without them. Or if you are going to make mistakes that you learn from, C will give you a smaller subset of mistakes to learn from at first so that you won't be as overwhelmed.
If you want an intro to programming, VB6 is a good choice. It's really straight-foward and easy to learn. Cons would be that it is a M$ product and that it is not really object-oriented, but has psuedo-OO elements.
There's nothing wrong with a language not being object-oriented.
I hate C++, nothing against object-oriented. But I think C is much better.. C++ is just overly bloated and much slower to me. That and it seems to be a microsoft-product nowadays, and I am very anti-microsoft.
If you want object oriented programming do python, ruby, or lua.. or Java or C# if you wish. But I don't think C++ is that great, in my honest opinion.
> That and it seems to be a Microsoft product nowadays, and I am very anti-Microsoft.
Maybe I'm about to make the mistake of feeding trolls, but... What the fuck?