Why do some people prefer C over C++?

El Corazon

James Brown wrote:

Also the many implicit behaviours and side-effects that can be introduced by the most innocent of statement.

the same can be said of pointers and defines, etc, which are a part of C. In fact templates suffer the same issues of writing with defines, only offer some design refinements. Classes are a pointer table of methods which can be written in C, but with greater risk. You can make C completely unreadable too, but it doesn't prove C is evil, it only tells about the programmer. Not knowing C++, of course it would make it unreadable, but knowing C++ well makes it very readable and much more stable.

_________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb)

James Brown

Your suggestions that C++ can be taught wrongly, although valid, has no relevance to the point being argued that I can see - C and C++ are different beasts and should be taught in isolation of each other, you will of course agree with this. And I made no comment that people use C++ and never learn templates. Are you implying that *I* am in that category? 'Know every facet'.....hmmm well, semantic arguments will lead nowhere. How about 'learn 10% of each language'? The simple fact remains, C is a simpler language than C++, it is far smaller and is easier to learn because of this.

http://www.catch22.net

James Brown

El Corazon wrote:

You are implying that as long as no one ever writes in C, C is always easier to learn. Well... true, but irrelevant, since eventually someone MUST write in it

No, I implied nothing of the sort. get over it.

http://www.catch22.net

James Brown

pointers used within the constraints of the language have no side-effects, and they are also part of C++. #defines, macros, likewise.

El Corazon wrote:

but knowing C++ well makes it very readable and much more stable.

This is a nonsense argument. Knowing C well also makes it very readable and much more stable. So what?

http://www.catch22.net

Lost User

James Brown wrote:

all the object-oriented trappings

Including Prolog and Smalltalk?

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Lost User

In industry you will often find C being used for legacy reasons or in small systems where the tools don't support C++ so well.

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Ed Poore

A pompous hot-air balloon a.k.a. a politician :shudder: :suss:

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Christian Graus

James Brown wrote:

C and C++ are different beasts and should be taught in isolation of each other, you will of course agree with this.

Yes, absolutely. The main issue with C++ is that this rarely happens, C is taught and classes are added.

James Brown wrote:

And I made no comment that people use C++ and never learn templates. Are you implying that *I* am in that category?

You made a comment above about templates being too confusing, I thought. If I misread, then no insult was intended, I just thought you'd already said that.

James Brown wrote:

The simple fact remains, C is a simpler language than C++, it is far smaller and is easier to learn because of this

The fact remains that given a *specific* task, C is no easier to learn to perform that task, it simply is less powerful and offers less options in terms of ways to approach it. If pure C code is the best way to tackle a specific problem, then you can write that code in C++. What you said is correct tho, it's what I said. C is smaller, and therefore easier to learn, only if you're talking about how long it would take to learn it completely. An example: I want a program which takes a persons name as text input, then outputs 'Hello, ' followed by the name. Which is easier to teach, memory management in C to create a char *, or iostreams code in C++ which uses the string class ?

Christian Graus - Microsoft MVP - C++ "I am working on a project that will convert a FORTRAN code to corresponding C++ code.I am not aware of FORTRAN syntax" ( spotted in the C++/CLI forum )

El Corazon

James Brown wrote:

No, I implied nothing of the sort. get over it.

you said problems with complex programs in C are irrelevant, the primary and unrefutable reason for making C++ in the first place, is irrelevant because you only want to focus on the simplicity of the simpliest program. Data storage is irrelevant because a program will never store or use anything because you want to focus only on the simpliest usage of C, not real-world implimentation issues. libraries, complexites, only the bad behaviors you want to acknowledge are relevant, not the complexities and bad behaviors you don't want to acknowledge... well, sure, if you want to avoid the real-world coding problems, I agree wth you. So again, as long as you never have to write anything sufficiently complex or useful, never have to read anyone else's code, or store, or transmit, or exchange informaton with any routine or program. as long as you never actually do anything with your code, you are correct, C is better. But then... by the same logic, so is Assembly.

_________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb)

El Corazon

James Brown wrote:

pointers used within the constraints of the language have no side-effects

similarly the structures of C++ have no side-effects when used properly. however, since C has no constraints on macros (they are simply compiler pre-processor substitution), it is very easy to have side-effects. Any C programmer of decades could probably provide you with a small book of examples.

_________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb)

El Corazon

I knew I forgot a language in my list! ... well, at least it was a small one. :laugh:

_________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb)

El Corazon

Ed.Poore wrote:

A pompous hot-air balloon a.k.a. a politician :shudder:

:wtf::omg::wtf:

_________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb)

James Brown

similarly C++ has no constraints on macros. Structures in C++ *do* have side effects. Do you know what constructors, and destructors are? Your 'argument' makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

http://www.catch22.net

Paul Conrad

James Brown wrote:

C++ is bloated, complicated, and is a horrible hack because it must maintain backward-compatiblity with C.

Not so.

"The clue train passed his station without stopping." - John Simmons / outlaw programmer

James Brown

Yes, I did prolog for far too long - even psychiatric counselling hasn't helped me get over it :-) Smalltalk, I only studied that very briefly and have very little memory of it.

http://www.catch22.net

James Brown

Christian Graus wrote:

The fact remains that given a *specific* task, C is no easier to learn to perform that task, it simply is less powerful and offers less options in terms of ways to approach it. If pure C code is the best way to tackle a specific problem, then you can write that code in C++.

yes, I agree absolutely. I was simply stating that C is simpler to learn than C++, and quite deliberately made no further comment as to which was the better language :-) It's usually much more work to write something in C compared with C++, and for this reason I usually choose C++ (or a subset of) to write things in. Plus the type-safety and all the other good things that the C++ language offers mean that it is much more useful than C. But, it is a right b****rd to learn fully.

http://www.catch22.net

El Corazon

James Brown wrote:

Do you know what constructors, and destructors are?

yes, and they have no side-affects. They exist and behave exactly as the definition has them and work quite well. So you obviously don't know how they work since you are now saying they must have side-effects?

_________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb)

James Brown

El Corazon wrote:

you said problems with complex programs in C are irrelevant

No, I did not. Learn to read. I *never* said that C was better, or worse than C++. You are reading huge amounts into my simple statement 'C is easier to learn' and are desperately trying to win an argument that doesn't exist, because I made no further comments as to which language was better or more useful.

http://www.catch22.net

James Brown

once again, you are making absolutely no sense. I did *not* say that constructors and desctructors have side effects. Your attempt at reasoning appears to be non-existant. I have nothing further to say to you.

http://www.catch22.net

Christian Graus

OK - this I agree with 100%. I guess we were trying to say the same things, or at least things that were not opposed :-)

Christian Graus - Microsoft MVP - C++ "I am working on a project that will convert a FORTRAN code to corresponding C++ code.I am not aware of FORTRAN syntax" ( spotted in the C++/CLI forum )