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I learnt C++ in 2018 and have no regrets

vishnubharathi.codes

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Re: I learnt C++ in 2018 and have no regrets

#61

Post by salawat »

anuragsoni wrote: post #23

"To round up, C++ does not dictate about its tooling, which basically gives lot of choices and flexibility. But at the same time it is making it complex for beginners to come in to projects and start projects with it." This was a big problem for me when I first started using C++. I don't remember it being too bad when I was just working on small projects and things I wanted to do at school. The problems started when…

I do not understand the mentality of "opinionated" frameworks or tools being a good thing, and the trend toward said frameworks disturbs me greatly.

What people call "opinionated" is nothing more than something being "architected". Someone has made a bunch of decisions for you that down the road you have no idea whether or not it will actually be good for you.

Using these types of frameworks short-circuits the process of being able to understand the nuances of building software. It's the apartment building or high rise of software development.

It turns design of your system from a personal journey toward the solution of your problem into little more than assembling linking logs.

I can understand the argument for an opinionated toolbox, but not for wanting base tooling itself to be opinionated.

Re: I learnt C++ in 2018 and have no regrets

#62

Post by goatlover »

blub wrote: post #19
hellofunk wrote: post #2

> My quest for relearning C++ started in November 2018. That’s great! I’ve been using it since 2013 and still haven’t learned it!

What language can one say that they fully master? I've been using Python since 2008-ish on and off for various scripting tasks and small tools, I can't say that I've "learned" it. They keep adding new stuff, some things I forgot, others I never needed. I've been using C++ professionally since ~2006 and for similar reasons I won't say that I master it either. Metaprogramming is a clear weak point for me, but OTOH I fi…

But you don't hear people make the same sort of comments about languages like Go and Scheme. There's a continuation from complex to less complex and C++ is one one end of that.

Re: I learnt C++ in 2018 and have no regrets

#63

Post by computerex »

anuragsoni wrote: post #23

"To round up, C++ does not dictate about its tooling, which basically gives lot of choices and flexibility. But at the same time it is making it complex for beginners to come in to projects and start projects with it." This was a big problem for me when I first started using C++. I don't remember it being too bad when I was just working on small projects and things I wanted to do at school. The problems started when…

Make was pretty ubiquitous and standardized.. I know in the Windows world there can be a lot of chaos but building from source has been a method of installing software on linux for a very long time.

Re: I learnt C++ in 2018 and have no regrets

#65

Post by sidcool »

I am learning Rust currently and it's fascinating. The concepts are very different and forces me to thing differently. I hope that Rust soon supports things like kernel programming, asynchronous networking, GUI programming etc. that C++ is so good at.

Re: I learnt C++ in 2018 and have no regrets

#66

Post by zanny »

mempko wrote: post #52
anuragsoni wrote: post #23

"To round up, C++ does not dictate about its tooling, which basically gives lot of choices and flexibility. But at the same time it is making it complex for beginners to come in to projects and start projects with it." This was a big problem for me when I first started using C++. I don't remember it being too bad when I was just working on small projects and things I wanted to do at school. The problems started when…

Most projects use CMake now so it seems the community is starting to coalesce around CMake as the "not official" build system.

Thats besides the growing number using Meson instead.

Re: I learnt C++ in 2018 and have no regrets

#67

Post by kgwxd »

ixtli wrote: post #57

> I feel that [a programming language is] just a tool to instruct a machine to do something. I can't stress enough how true this is.

Machine code is just a tool to instruct a machine how to do something. Programming languages are for human-to-compiler and human-to-human communications.

Re: I learnt C++ in 2018 and have no regrets

#68

Post by mempko »

bluGill wrote: post #9
CodeSheikh wrote: post #6

Unless your job demanded it I can't think of a compelling reason for a Node guy to learn C++ as their go to choice of OO language. Why not Java? Even Python is a good gateway to OO for folks coming straight form Node background.

c++ is not an OO language. C++ is a tool to get things done in the real world using whatever paradigm makes sense for your problem. Sometimes that is OO, sometimes not. C++ is very messy, but for the most part you can ignore the messy things.

For the most part, the world is messy ;-)

Re: I learnt C++ in 2018 and have no regrets

#69

Post by zanny »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #32

I've learned 15+ years ago, and I stopped paying attention around ~2010, which is just before significant changes were made. Even though I read up on some features and concepts from C++11 and C++14, I feel so disconnected from what's going on as if what I learned was a completely different language. Can anyone recommend any source for someone with lots of pre-C++11 experience to get up to speed with current capabilit…

https://en.cppreference.com/

If you already know the language flow control you don't need to read paragraphs of a book to relearn to how "think" in the language. You just need the "whats new" parts.

Re: I learnt C++ in 2018 and have no regrets

#70

Post by lmm »

bluGill wrote: post #29
anuragsoni wrote: post #23

"To round up, C++ does not dictate about its tooling, which basically gives lot of choices and flexibility. But at the same time it is making it complex for beginners to come in to projects and start projects with it." This was a big problem for me when I first started using C++. I don't remember it being too bad when I was just working on small projects and things I wanted to do at school. The problems started when…

C++ is commonly used for large complex projects. The problem with opinions is eventually you come across something that the opinion will not allow. For a small project an opinionated build system makes things easier and you essentially never run across something that can't work. For very large projects that is not true and so you end up fighting opinions in some place.

Examples? As a maven advocate I've commonly seen this claimed ("we have to have an ant build because we need to do x/y/z custom thing") but I've never seen an example that held up under scrutiny. E.g. there's no reason any project would ever need a custom source directory layout. No project needs to run tests before compile (and if you really need build step x to happen before build step y, you can always separate them into separate modules and use the normal "module z depends on module w" functionality that any decent build system will have). I've never seen a case for a custom version-numbering scheme that holds up. I've never seen a case for custom VCS release tags where the benefits actually outweighed the costs. All the custom hacks that make for incomprehensible builds turn out to be replaceable with at most a few lines of code or, in very rare cases, a plugin that follows the normal rules of plugins in that build system.
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