Re: Visual C++ vs Visual C#

From:

"Bo Persson" <bop@gmb.dk>

Newsgroups:

microsoft.public.vc.language

Date:

Tue, 21 Nov 2006 23:23:08 +0100

Message-ID:

<4shci3FvqbeeU1@mid.individual.net>

Ben Voigt wrote:

My basic idea is that the first program should not contain any
language features which will not be taught immediately. I have a
big beef with java, where beginning programmers must learn a
15-ish-line incantation that seems to be magic (public class,
public static and array [] on main, System.out.println). I see the
idea of learning C++ without learning C to be fraught with the same
perils. The hello world program in a class on C++ should be as
simple as possible, which means this:
#include <stdio.h>

int main(void)
{
puts("Hello World!\n");
return 0;
}

Every single token in this program can be easily explained, there
is nothing that has to be learned by rote.

What?

What does .h mean in the include? A header, what's that?

What does void mean?

This \n thingy, what is that? Why doesn't it show up in the output?

Compare with a similar
"pure C++" program:
#include <iostream>

using namespace std;

int main(void)
{
cout << "Hello world" << endl;
return 0;
}

We've added namespaces and shift operators for no gain, and even

What shift operators? You mean the output operator? :-)

I guess you haven't looked into my favourite "Accelerated C++", which starts
with a gentle introduction in Chapter 0.

Quote

Let us begin by looking at a small C++ program:

// a small C++ program
#include <iostream>

int main()
{
std::cout << "Hello, world!" << std::endl;
return 0;
}

End Quote

Nice, isn't it! :-)

It is definitely no harder to explain that std::cout is the standard output,
than it is to explain just what puts("\n") actually does. In the book, it
takes 3 pages to explain your first program - what happens and why.

Bo Persson