Once I learned safer and more advanced languages post-university, C++ just wasn’t fun anymore.
The pool of talented C++ developers is running dry
521–530 of 595 posts
Re: The pool of talented C++ developers is running dry
#522Earlier quoted context omitted.
Perhaps it would have been helpful to actually say that given that this is not a forum aimed at or primarily populated by people who work in or around finance. In a general context, "8:30 to 5 and you can't work from home" sounds like a description of the standard 20th century business schedule.
Are you really, truly not familiar with the idea that the finance industry stereotypically requires long hours and values work over all else, at an institutional level? OP could have spelled it out, but in any communication there is a level of shared knowledge. When you read a comment that you understand to be complaining about making nearly a million dollars whilst working 9/5 in the office, a more charitable path w…
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Re: The pool of talented C++ developers is running dry
#523Earlier quoted context omitted.
software companies often don't make any money at all.By that logic paying them at all is too much.
Big companies don't post profits for tax avoidance reasons. They use various strategies to minimise profits - or ideally operating at a loss, so that they don't pay tax or very little. They also use this as an argument "look we don't make any money so we can't pay you any more", while at the same time you hear CEO buying themselves another supercar or a beach house.
I was saying that tying the salary to "how much profit the company makes" makes no sense :D
Re: The pool of talented C++ developers is running dry
#524Earlier quoted context omitted.
That’s what we called a “regular job” 30 years ago. Work from wasn’t even an option.
That’s not true at all for white collar jobs. You’d bring your work home in a briefcase and work on it after the kids went to bed. And if was a blue collar job you got overtime. This job expected you to work onsite 80 hours a week.
I would argue that getting a double salary compared to most other white collar jobs counts enough as overtime.
Re: The pool of talented C++ developers is running dry
#525Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most of the stereotypical pain of C++ lives in legacy codebases where they're passing raw pointers all over the place, doing horrible things with array indexes, and poorly re-implementing the standard library containers. If you start from a base of modern C++, embrace the standard library and newer, safer data structures, it's a pleasure!
> If you start from a base of modern C++, embrace the standard library and newer, safer data structures, it's a pleasure! I write software in probably a dozen languages, including C++, and using the features/STL in C++17/C++20 in no way makes using C++ a "pleasure", it simply makes using C++ "less painful". If I want to present information processing applications to users, it's C#/Java (or Kotlin, or Scala, or F#) wi…
Have a gut feeling that polyglots can’t handle C++ so well because their strategies for using several languages fail: one has to know C++ well in order to be able to use it successfully.
I know C++ memory management like the back of my hand and much of the STL (with some C++17+ exceptions) by heart. But even though I’ve used both C# and Java in the past and could jump back in, my working knowledge of those languages right now is near zero.
Polyglots truly are jacks of all trades and masters of none.
Re: The pool of talented C++ developers is running dry
#526Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If you're given license to finally rewrite that [C++03] code to modern standards Then you aren't choosing C++20-something, you're choosing a new language altogether. This is why the demand for C++ devs is dropping - if you're going to bite the bullet and rewrite, why not choose a better language, preferably with GC?
They probably want the performance of C++ without the learning curve of Rust It's not like C++20 is completely different. There's just a lot more utilities in the stdlib so hopefully less raw pointer magic.
What learning curve? Rust is easier than C++, and a whole lot easier than C++20 further extended with modern safety guidelines.
Re: The pool of talented C++ developers is running dry
#527Earlier quoted context omitted.
If we're talking about distant future then any form of work is abuse and access to levitating transport falls under basic human needs obviously.
No, I'm talking about right now. Or as soon as possible. There is no need, in 2023 AD, to work as hard as in the 1900 just to survive. Absolutely no need. Food and shelter could be easily provided for everyone. And if we can't "easily" provided it, then we should strive to do so. We have to shift from old patterns of thinking to new ways, we have to realize that the only thing holding us down is an outdated view of t…
Which planet are you living on?
Re: The pool of talented C++ developers is running dry
#528Earlier quoted context omitted.
Same in video games. Many C++ engineers are learning JS in spare time to hopefully jump over to something that pays 4-5x. My personal experience also says that you spend much less time to build something profitable in JS and PHP than in C or C++. I don't think it's impossible that in another 10 or 20 years C and C++ engineering roles will become much better paid as legacy code maintainers' pool will dry up. Hopefully…
> I don't think it's impossible that in another 10 or 20 years C and C++ engineering roles will become much better paid as legacy code maintainers' pool will dry up. Maybe. I've made the jump from pure embedded (spent over 15 years in embedded) to backend (Go, with some rudimentary Java thrown into the mix). I literally doubled my salary in the space of 12 months. In 20 years, are they going to hire my retired old as…
> No benefit - The very low-level embedded systems that toggles signals on wires doesn't gain much, if anything, from memory safety
The Rust embedded ecosystem has lots of benefits in addition to pure memory safety, which is basically table stakes for a modern language. It gives you a vastly improved DevX, at least if you aren't using hardware that's too exotic for which only proprietary C/C++ toolchains are available.
Re: The pool of talented C++ developers is running dry
#529Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not posting to make a counterpoint but simply because related and interesting for the C++ folks around here. > Wt is a web GUI library in modern C++. Quickly develop highly interactive web UIs with widgets, without having to write a single line of JavaScript. Wt handles all request handling and page rendering for you, so you can focus on functionality. https://www.webtoolkit.eu/wt HN submission: https://news.ycombina…
Thanks, but just a reminder of why we don't use C++ for web applications: creating a web app is basically a string manipulation problem. The work in most cases is just getting data from a database and returning text that represents the HTML+CSS in the web page. Not only you don't need the C++ speed to do this process, but string manipulation is also the weak spot of C++, due to the need for manual memory management.
Yes, the ease of safe string manipulation is quite possibly one of the clearest wins for Rust over C++.
Re: The pool of talented C++ developers is running dry
#530There are plenty of talented C++ programmers. They just don't want to be abused by trading firms or work in that culture. Even paying them more won't work, because no amount of money is worth that abuse. I interviewed at a trading firm once, while I was working at Netflix (because Netflix encouraged us to interview for outside jobs at least once a year). The comp would have been double my Netflix salary. But I would…
Them: “$500k to $1M cash compensation, you have to maintain some opsec and be in the office during regular working hours.”
You: “This is OUTRAGEOUS! Hard pass.”
We sw devs can be a spoiled bunch sometimes.