Re: C++, is it Dead?
I have similar experience after I worked with .NET-only developers :)
Another opinion I was getting frequently was "command line? who is using
command line these days. Microsoft invented GUI to make users happy with
mouse" :-)
Recently I was very lazy and my college didn't bother to program so I
invented a new concept: Programming without keyboards. By copy pasting with
mouse I was able to solve my problems in seconds ;) I think if I will
develop this technique I can be a l33t mouse-enabled programmer ;)
On the other hand I like using my keyboard ... some times ;)
Ironicaly, Microsoft have been forcing to use GUI but now is promoting
his brand new command line - MSH :-)
Heh I would like to know what the average .NET programmer would say about
that. Probably: "oh... I can't use it... it's too useless because it doesn't
have intellisense" ;)
Isn't is funny that people can come up with a thousand reasons of why
something is bad and still not mention their own lack of skills? :)
I met similar people on my way of life, but I started to not to help
them very fast, just giving URI's where they can find instructions :-)
I should do the same. Often I've wanted to tell people "oh why don't you
just grow some skills".
On the other hand I like to answer peoples questions. It gets me to learn
new stuff fast and I eventually get a GOD status because I know how to type
some keywords into google ... ph34r ;-)
Heh. You're completely right :-) Not all of them can do safe
programming even WITH .NET (no pointers for instance) and WITH
documentation.
Sad but truth.
One of the most amusing (and annoying) examples was when one friend asked
about how to write a crypto-related application FAST. I was telling him...
just because you wrote it, it doesn't mean it's safe if you don't undestand
how it works.
It's very simple. C++ runtime library is from 1990's. .NET was
created in 2001 and has been since then improved in 2005. Don't you
think that .NET learned from other languages mistakes and wanted to
find solutions to make it even better and easier to use?
I can't imagine the way you're trying compare usability of libraries for
such different languages as C++ and C#. Sorry.
Here is a simple XML parser written in C# which would have costed much more
time to do in C++:
r = new XmlTextReader(args[0]);
while (r.Read())
{
switch (r.NodeType)
{
case XmlNodeType.Element:
attr = new Hashtable();
if (r.HasAttributes)
{
for (i = 0; i < r.AttributeCount; i++)
{
r.MoveToAttribute(i);
attr.Add(r.Name, r.Value);
}
r.MoveToElement();
}
....
It's just a piece of code but as you can see the syntax is 90% the same.
There is nothing here that could not have been done in C++.
It's not just about syntax. It's about feature completeness of the library.
For instance I can create a SOAP network client with 5 lines of code with
..NET. It would take alot more work to do the same using a C library. (Yes I
did an implementation in both languages and gSoap library was much less
clean to work with).
Therefore it's not a surprise that .NET runtime library is better
in many ways.
It's different, completely different. Certainly, there are many many
things missing in C++ standard library but you can use Boost libiraries
or many other third-party libs. So, finally, you have also complete
environment.
Yeah. As another person stated it's good to have democracy. It's good to
have the option to use another vendors libraries. However I feel that some
of the old API's would be nice to get rid of and get replaced with more well
designed components.
I think we should stop this discussion because it
stareted to be OT here ;-)
Yeah you're right. I think I've gotten my point through anyway.
-- Henrik