From someone in the trenches using C++, I can definitely tell you that C++ 11/14 has made a massive difference, along with the adoption of better programming practices that have occasionally been eschewed by game programmers because of speed concerns. I describe the new C++ as feeling like C#, except with far uglier syntax. It's fantastic to be able to almost completely eschew the use of raw pointers (at least ones which I have to use to manage memory). It almost feels like the language has garbage colle
Personally, I tend to view C++ like an extremely sharp kitchen knife. It can be a dangerous tool for novices, and you certainly don't want to use it when a butter knife will do, but there are some jobs that simply demand it.
Maybe that's the problem? Can't we have the power of the sharp kitchen knife without the four years of training from Tibetan monks? We can. I've been using http://nimrod-lang.org even for what I used to write throwaway python scripts, but I write "serious" software with it too without pr
Maybe that's the problem? Can't we have the power of the sharp kitchen knife without the four years of training from Tibetan monks?
Sure. What we can't have is the power of the sharp kitchen knife, plus the compatibility with existing code and libraries without the four years of training.
I can teach a novice to use a nice, pleasant, safe and very powerful subset of modern C++ in a fairly short period of time... as long as the novice is only working on code written in that subset. If the novice starts looking at and modifying other code, though, all bets are off until he's done his years on the mountain top.
The way I see it, C++14 is a very nice language with a bunch of baggage you should just ignore... except when you have to use because you're working with code that already does. This means given a clean, modern codebase you should be able to hire a bunch of smart novices and get them productive fairly quickly. Just keep an old salt around who can answer their questions when they step outside of the nice subset.
Good questions - interesting answers (Score:5, Insightful)
From someone in the trenches using C++, I can definitely tell you that C++ 11/14 has made a massive difference, along with the adoption of better programming practices that have occasionally been eschewed by game programmers because of speed concerns. I describe the new C++ as feeling like C#, except with far uglier syntax. It's fantastic to be able to almost completely eschew the use of raw pointers (at least ones which I have to use to manage memory). It almost feels like the language has garbage colle
Re: (Score:0)
Maybe that's the problem? Can't we have the power of the sharp kitchen knife without the four years of training from Tibetan monks? We can. I've been using http://nimrod-lang.org even for what I used to write throwaway python scripts, but I write "serious" software with it too without pr
Re:Good questions - interesting answers (Score:2)
Maybe that's the problem? Can't we have the power of the sharp kitchen knife without the four years of training from Tibetan monks?
Sure. What we can't have is the power of the sharp kitchen knife, plus the compatibility with existing code and libraries without the four years of training.
I can teach a novice to use a nice, pleasant, safe and very powerful subset of modern C++ in a fairly short period of time... as long as the novice is only working on code written in that subset. If the novice starts looking at and modifying other code, though, all bets are off until he's done his years on the mountain top.
The way I see it, C++14 is a very nice language with a bunch of baggage you should just ignore... except when you have to use because you're working with code that already does. This means given a clean, modern codebase you should be able to hire a bunch of smart novices and get them productive fairly quickly. Just keep an old salt around who can answer their questions when they step outside of the nice subset.