One can't just learn C++ in one year, imho.
It is well known that you can teach yourself C++ in 21 days: https://abstrusegoose.com/249
I learnt C++ in 2018 and have no regrets
191–200 of 259 posts
Re: I learnt C++ in 2018 and have no regrets
#192Earlier quoted context omitted.
I ran into this trying to get into it about 3 weeks ago. I'm so used to things like npm, ruby gems, go packages, pip that it felt like a huge task just to get something built or settle on a way for me to build mine. Even grabbing libraries from github, I was unsure if I should grab just the headers and DLLs, or import the entire tree and mashup my build scripts with theirs. I wish I had stayed with it since college b…
Making Rust work nicely with win32 is probably less effort (and more valuable) than getting enough momentum behind a good dependency manager for C++.
I have high hopes for C++ modules. Seems like that could be a good catalyst for a standard C++ package manager.
Re: I learnt C++ in 2018 and have no regrets
#193One can't just learn C++ in one year, imho.
> My quest for relearning C++ started in November 2018.
He started ~2 months ago.
Re: I learnt C++ in 2018 and have no regrets
#194Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think that statement would have to be classified as inaccurate. using C++ teaches you mostly about general purpose programming and it's pretty easy to go from C++ to python to Java to bash, etc.
Nonsense. C++'s template system behaves unlike any other language (things like SFINAE and the techniques that use it do not transfer), C++-style RAII is relatively unusual, I don't think any other language requires the programmer to think about virtual versus non-virtual inheritance, the C-derived sequence point rules are obscure and much looser than most languages' evaluation rules, the exception-safety rules are un…
It seems a bit odd to complain that C++ doesn't support garbage collection. I mean yes, it's true, but... part of the point of C++ is to give you control of memory.
Re: I learnt C++ in 2018 and have no regrets
#195Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nonsense. C++'s template system behaves unlike any other language (things like SFINAE and the techniques that use it do not transfer), C++-style RAII is relatively unusual, I don't think any other language requires the programmer to think about virtual versus non-virtual inheritance, the C-derived sequence point rules are obscure and much looser than most languages' evaluation rules, the exception-safety rules are un…
well, that's just like, your opinion, man ( big lebowski reference for those too young to know ). The reason I disagree with you is because I have never met a C++ programmer who only knew C++ and couldn't easily do work in some other language, but of course plenty of people know other languages and can't do C++. Yes, SFINAE and RAII - you can go for many years of working in C++ without writing much code using either…
That is more like an example of Blub paradox in action: You can write in everything as if it were C, you can't write C as if it were everything else.
Except that it makes a point that is subtly different from the one pg originally raised in discussing Blub paradox: If you only care about shipping something, you aren't inclined to think about abstraction as a goal state, and that's what these other languages are doing: handling things with a goal of adding abstraction that for a C++ user is out of reach or requires considerable knowledge of the C++ standard. Users of Python or JS don't know what a pointer is, and that's intended by design, because for most applications it is an implementation detail and automating it away is desirable.
When most software was written in assembler, data structures more complex than an array were often avoided, because it was difficult to code and debug them. And if you were an assembly coder of that era, you might well say that you didn't see the point of structured programming, or that you could easily get the same effect in fewer bytes. And to some degree, you'd be right, because you would just design a smaller scope of application that makes those techniques viable.
Trying to write something resembling modern C++ style in x86 assembly, in contrast, would be as fruitless as a JS coder trying to use C++ like JS, since your abstractions wouldn't be there. You'd have to learn the thought process of a lower level coder and apply those strategies instead of the ones you are comfortable with.
Re: I learnt C++ in 2018 and have no regrets
#196Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why would one use menson over cmake ?
Meson is much easier to use and configure for C++, being quite obviously designed specifically with C++ builds in mind. It automagically does the right thing for setting up most C++ build environments by default with virtually no config or quirks you need to learn. It is built on top of Ninja, and generally very fast and efficient. The only real knock against it is that the documentation isn't as good as could be, an…
How would you evaluate Meson as a build system for C projects? I _think_ C and C++ build process is very similar, but I only work professionally with C, so maybe there are some quirks to C++ I am not aware of.
Basically, I wonder if you would recommend Meson as a build system for a mostly C project with maybe some C++ parts and some extra external tools ran on top.
Re: I learnt C++ in 2018 and have no regrets
#197Earlier quoted context omitted.
I ran into this trying to get into it about 3 weeks ago. I'm so used to things like npm, ruby gems, go packages, pip that it felt like a huge task just to get something built or settle on a way for me to build mine. Even grabbing libraries from github, I was unsure if I should grab just the headers and DLLs, or import the entire tree and mashup my build scripts with theirs. I wish I had stayed with it since college b…
> Even grabbing libraries from github, I was unsure if I should grab just the headers and DLLs, or import the entire tree and mashup my build scripts with theirs. Honestly this is something that apt (et al.) make so easy on Linux distros that when you move to Mac or Windows you just have hard time believing people still in 2018 have to _deal with this shit_ (installing libraries and their headers by downloading each…
For building my (rather small) projects for Windows I use MSYS2 [0]; it uses pacman for package management and has quite a big library of ready binaries.
Re: I learnt C++ in 2018 and have no regrets
#198Earlier quoted context omitted.
Meson is much easier to use and configure for C++, being quite obviously designed specifically with C++ builds in mind. It automagically does the right thing for setting up most C++ build environments by default with virtually no config or quirks you need to learn. It is built on top of Ninja, and generally very fast and efficient. The only real knock against it is that the documentation isn't as good as could be, an…
How would you evaluate Meson as a build system for C projects? I _think_ C and C++ build process is very similar, but I only work professionally with C, so maybe there are some quirks to C++ I am not aware of. Basically, I wonder if you would recommend Meson as a build system for a mostly C project with maybe some C++ parts and some extra external tools ran on top.
I agree with your presumption that it almost certainly should work well but I haven't actually used it for a C project. Offhand, I can't think of anything that I would expect to break.
Re: I learnt C++ in 2018 and have no regrets
#199> 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.
While you are right, i see a lot of enginners making bad decisions for the right tools to use for a giving problem, based on psychology and emotional reasoning.
Things might even work in the end, but you can end with a weak project that wont scale or will crumble when faced with the destructive nature of time.
I know its a controversial topic, but i think a little bit of zen-budhism training of the mind can make wonders in making those sort of decisions, where the unbalanced parts of our psychology will eventually show up and cripple what could be a great thing.
I am an IT enginner, but i practice a lot of self-mind vigilance to understand my decision making process, to avoid making the most confortable decisions and going for the write answer, no matter how painful and expensive it may sound.
To give an example of this, i remember for instance CouchDB vs. MongoDB, where the concepts were layout in CouchDB, but it was done in Erlang, so as soon someone did almost the same thing in a language that suits a database development well like C++, the tool sky rocket and reach all of its potential.
The language i see this happening the most for instance is Python. Where you have great concepts and great enginners but where a lot of them shouldn't be using Python for that particular goaç. Again here i can use Mercurial as an example of a great tool in a bad fitting language (for the given tool, as Python might be a great fit for other use cases).
Re: I learnt C++ in 2018 and have no regrets
#200I also used 2018 to learn and get proficient in C++. Honestly, I don’t really like it. The only real reason for that is that using smart pointers is verbose, but I don’t want to do manual memory management where it’s possible to instead rely on RAII. Ironically enough, though, C++ is probably the second of two languages I’d consider my “go to.”
You dont go from beginner to proficient in any language in 1 year, much less C++.
Well, I guess "proficient" in relation to someone who had started with the language 1 year ago. There is definitely still a lot left to learn. I don't intend to claim mastery, though.