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The pool of talented C++ developers is running dry

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Re: The pool of talented C++ developers is running dry

#321

Post by marcosdumay »

xtracto wrote: post #253
inetknght wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It seems what you're looking for is a "C++ developer who likes to write the same C++ style as myself" ;) No, I'm perfectly content with someone writing C++ in a different style. What I'm not content with is someone who uses old code without a technical reason why. C style arrays, for example, are 100% inferior to std::array. Old loops with indices are maybe 80% (off the cuff guesstimate) inferior to ranged-for. The…

holy mother of god! I used C++ around 2000 for some old projects. When new and delete where the object oriented "equivalent" for malloc() and free(). So, if you don't use that, what do you use in 2022 C++?

By the GP's opinion, you use the stl classes that implement RAII for you.

What is, obviously, only one way to do it, with its up and downsides. Granted that the upsides are much more numerous than the downsides, but there is a reason it's not the only option available.

Re: The pool of talented C++ developers is running dry

#322

Post by pyb »

adamius wrote: post #273

Is the pool running dry or are they simply not putting enough water in or allowing enough people through the gate? I've seen the job ads. Must have five years. Must have x, y, z. For a junior position. Unrealistic. Same person can get a web job elsewhere with much less nonsense. So off they go. Like a lot of things in IT these shortages are nonsense. They are lobbying for visa relaxation or similar so they can pay le…

This. The gatekeeping can be intense : "must be proficient in C++ template metaprogramming", etc.

Re: The pool of talented C++ developers is running dry

#323

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

TremendousJudge wrote: post #281
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I liken C++ (and other "industrial" languages, like PHP), to "advanced" tools, like the specialty tools and brands, that only professional mechanics know, like OTC. You won't get them at Home Depot. The language definitely has its niche, and I am glad to see it not being used for standard GUI programming, anymore. But for that niche, there's nothing better, and it's a big niche.

What can PHP do that other less vilified languages can't? What is its "niche"?

Please, everyone is supposed to be slagging C++ (and me), here. I'm sure there will be rich opportunities to dis PHP, in other threads.

Re: The pool of talented C++ developers is running dry

#324

Post by jollyllama »

fouronnes3 wrote: post #177
btilly wrote: post #41

I've seen this story several times. Once a language no longer has a developer pipeline, it becomes a language with no future. No matter how important and widely used. You wind up with jobs begging for qualified developers. Given how systems last, the language may survive indefinitely. As nobody dares migrate projects off of it. But employers will struggle more and more to find employees. The first language that this…

If you're an experienced C++ developer today, is it a wise career choice to go the "C++ expert" route, or should you pivot to something else?

Depends on your opinion of Rust and the associated community.

Re: The pool of talented C++ developers is running dry

#325

Post by [deleted] »

eulers_secret wrote: post #197
deaddabe wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You may also look into Kernel Programming for a lucrative systems programming career. This is the road I have taken since I started to work professionally, but I yet have to find a lucrative job. I know that I am paid more than microcontroller devs, but less than web devs. The market for kernel developers is not that big either.

I did Linux kernel work for a decade at my old company. Left due to low pay. Also worried about my employability. Not much call for C programmers in 2022. You’ll always fear losing your job. I love low level though, I do embedded projects for fun! I can probably sling back-end Python for 1.5x the salary. I wish embedded payed better, but it doesn’t and therefore I won’t help alleviate this “shortage”.

[deleted]

Re: The pool of talented C++ developers is running dry

#327

Post by trashface »

YetAnotherNick wrote: post #286
kibwen wrote: post #57

> Hickling pointed to Java, which has long “seemed to be replacing C++ itself,” but hasn't. This is inaccurate. Java completely ate C++'s lunch in the enterprise space back around the turn of the millennium. Java doesn't need to continue to eat into C++'s marketshare in other domains, because it has more than enough mindshare to sustain itself (there are more Java programmers than C++ programmers), and its very exist…

> Java completely ate C++'s lunch in the enterprise space back around the turn of the millennium When was that C++'s lunch? I might be wrong, but for backend dev(majority of enterprise work?) C++ was never a big thing.

Late 90s. It was before Java got hotspot. Java prior to that was incredibly slow. Microsoft's J++ was a more performant runtime than Sun/Oracle java for several years. That ultimately became C#/.Net.

C++ had the benefit of running fast but it had all the problems you can still run into today. I'll never forget that app I worked on where function deep in the stack was returning a reference to a local string variable containing html...

Re: The pool of talented C++ developers is running dry

#328

Post by jollyllama »

Part of the equation is that C++ devs just aren't as fungible as Python, Rust, and devs in newer languages (not that being a C++ and a Python dev is mutually exclusive). The reason for this is that a lot of the C++ codebases were written before adoption of open source 3rd party libraries was widespread and codebases were more bespoke in general. So, as a consequence, the effectiveness of a C++ dev in any given org is highly correlated to tenure. It's tough to penetrate as a new dev, and if you have to move companies, it sets you back considerably. It's like a forest with poor soil and a mature canopy; difficult to take root in.

Re: The pool of talented C++ developers is running dry

#329

Post by praptak »

"Not enough talent" means "not enough talent for your shitty pay and/or horrible work conditions".

I spent my first ~5 years at Google working in C++. Google didn't seem to have a problem finding enough C++ folks whose C++ skill is basically "writes compilers and maintains a template library as a hobby" or "can explain a garbled stack trace in a crash dump". Also folks without prior C++ experience did reach this level while working there.

Re: The pool of talented C++ developers is running dry

#330

Post by commandlinefan »

ryandrake wrote: post #103
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Employees may be leaving the embedded space Embedded opportunities have been slowly shrinking for years. For whatever combination of reasons, a lot of employers think that embedded work is easy or otherwise doesn’t require a large budget. It’s increasingly bizarre to get a well-designed IoT device with a very polished mobile app and web UI, then struggle with hardware factory resets and firmware upgrades because th…

Many hardware companies still see software as just another line item on the BOM: Like a screw or a gasket. It's something you build cheaply or buy from a supplier and sprinkle it on the product somewhere on the assembly line. These hardware companies have no concept of typical measures of software quality, building an ecosystem, release management, sometimes even no concept of source control. They tell an overworked…

> typical measures of software quality

To play devil's advocate - are there any (useful) measures of software quality? Even this place is mostly programmers and we can't even agree whether we should be writing unit tests or not.

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