Thread: C++ or Java

Originally Posted by EBF

If you are serious about programming, you must know Linux.

Not sure I could disagree with this statement more. You do not need to know linux for ANYTHING other than knowing linux. And your need to know linux... is pretty low. Certainly not for programming.

I've been programming since the mid 80s and I've never once had to program anything for linux short of a csh script here and there (which is just a glorified batch file). And that's been for hp-ux come to think of it. Not linux. So nope. Never once needed linux for anything at all.

There is really no comparison. A lot of universities think they can maintain enrollment by pushing java and moving away from the low level, sacrificing the rigor of computer science into a mere software engineering program.

C and C++ are the industry standard. Learn it, use it, win it. Pointers, memory management, compiler intricacies.

Java has some nice networking features and easy threading but any serious computer scientist would benefit themselves by spending their time mastering C/C++.

Sent from the NAU CS projects room using Tapatalk 2

Originally Posted by Kanati8869

Originally Posted by EBF

If you are serious about programming, you must know Linux.

Not sure I could disagree with this statement more. You do not need to know linux for ANYTHING other than knowing linux. And your need to know linux... is pretty low. Certainly not for programming.

No offense to you, but I stand my original statement.

This does not mean that, for example, someone cannot be an amazing C# developer without knowing linux.

I did not say, "If you are serious about C#, you must know linux," or "if you are serious about web development/mobile development/Windows application development, you must know linux."
I said programming, as in programming as a general study, not just "you can write code."

I do believe that basic knowledge of linux makes any programmer a better programmer, just like basic knowledge about things like what a register is or how a compiler works will make anyone a better programmer.

Perhaps I should specify that when I say "programmer," I am more specifically thinking about software engineering.

Software Engineer != code monkey

You want to be a software engineer who understands programming concepts and data structures that are applicable across many languages and frameworks, not a code monkey who only knows how to write enterprise apps in one language (or perhaps one OS).

A good university teaches you the former. While it is not impossible to do only the latter, one option is clearly more employable.

It is true that to understand C/C++, you must understand programming from a lower level. However... diving straight into C/C++ without that lower level understanding will not deliver it to you. It will only frustrate you immensely. If you already have a cursory knowledge of both Java and C, then I suggest you go read this book:

Amazon.com: The Elements of Computing Systems: Building a Modern Computer from First Principles (9780262640688): Noam Nisan, Shimon Schocken: Books

The nickname of the book is "From NAND to Tetris in 12 steps." Basically you "build" a computer from boolean gates... along the way making short stops to build an assembler, a compiler, and an OS. Top it all off by building a game to run on your OS. One of the few books I'm aware of that presents such a top to bottom perspective of computers.

Do all of the projects in the book. After that, then you should tackle C/C++, and all the "hard to understand" stuff like memory management and pointers will all of a sudden seem extremely simple.

Originally Posted by EBF

No offense to you, but I stand my original statement.

This does not mean that, for example, someone cannot be an amazing C# developer without knowing linux.

I did not say, "If you are serious about C#, you must know linux," or "if you are serious about web development/mobile development/Windows application development, you must know linux."
I said programming, as in programming as a general study, not just "you can write code."

I do believe that basic knowledge of linux makes any programmer a better programmer, just like basic knowledge about things like what a register is or how a compiler works will make anyone a better programmer.

Perhaps I should specify that when I say "programmer," I am more specifically thinking about software engineering.

Software Engineer != code monkey

You want to be a software engineer who understands programming concepts and data structures that are applicable across many languages and frameworks, not a code monkey who only knows how to write enterprise apps in one language (or perhaps one OS).

A good university teaches you the former. While it is not impossible to do only the latter, one option is clearly more employable.

There is absolutely no reason to learn Linux for C# or C++ programming. I have been using linux for a long time along with many other operating systems and never once in my days of development did I have to do anything in linux other than file mapping.

FYI All programming concepts and data structures are applicable across any OS.

Originally Posted by GReYVee

Yeah Bunni, Java is a referenced language. JRE is poorly implemented, slow, and won't provide much for serious developers. It's claim has always been cross-platform through portability. Many other languages have been able to make safe type coding, and portable code, possible to some degree without as much loss in performance or capability. I agree if you want to learn programming generically C++ is the way to go.

But I also believe some skill sets will benefit greater with an introduction to Java as a softer way to understand GUI/OOP. I am pretty sure the only reason Java has not succumbed to other languages in this line of study is because of the way it also extends into browser based 'coding'.

Hell Calc/MatLab and all those ridiculous ECE courses provided a better structure for engineers. It really depends on what level of focus you want programming to be as a part of your career path.



You're an exception because you love anything&everything about programming. If someone is even asking this question they probably do not have that same level of focus. So although the language falls short on many aspects he just wants an answer on what may be better -- and the answer is it depends.

nonsense. Then he can roll with a friendly language like vb. I grew up on it. Its actually got everything (unlike java which still does not have overloading or optional parameters-- tossers.)



My problem with java is that given how its structured, its actually directed to make upcoming programmers learn extremely poor programming methodologies * COUGH* android app store apps *COUGH* so whats the bloody point.

Originally Posted by hannibal

Matlab is for eunics and dumb jocks. Real men you mathematica or maple.

-H

I act as the alg engineer for a image processing lab, tossers only know matlab.... God the horror...

Originally Posted by EBF

I would actually suggest using Linux with C++, but if you are not comfortable with Linux or do not want to learn it, (Windows) ... If you are serious about programming, you must know Linux.

meh, if your a c native, aside from a few libs you can cross compile (save doing any gui stuff, even then, can use qt). Really nothing particular that you need to distinguish between linux and windows, kind of the point of most programming languages to abstract the hardware and even software its run on.

Originally Posted by EBF

Visual Studio is okay.

nothing and i repeat nothing even comes close to comparing to visual studios. This is a rare moment when you wil hear me compliment a mic$oft product... nothing beats the features provided by visual stuidios, period. If mic$oft ever did anything right, it was visual studios. For gots sake i can modify code on the fly without needing to recompile. Hell if you say visual studios is alright you must be working on small projects... I honestly, cannot imagine trying to work on a 100+ file project let alone one thats 1000+ files without visual studios...

Sure if your making small sub 1000 liner programs mvs is alright but fuck... no other ide can even pretend to claim to offer features even in the same caliber as mvs...



Any universities using java are lazy twats. My university does it, but only because the professors are lazy and java is much easier for them to grade than c++ projects.

Originally Posted by EBF

No offense to you, but I stand my original statement.

This does not mean that, for example, someone cannot be an amazing C# developer without knowing linux.

I did not say, "If you are serious about C#, you must know linux," or "if you are serious about web development/mobile development/Windows application development, you must know linux."
I said programming, as in programming as a general study, not just "you can write code."

I do believe that basic knowledge of linux makes any programmer a better programmer, just like basic knowledge about things like what a register is or how a compiler works will make anyone a better programmer.

Perhaps I should specify that when I say "programmer," I am more specifically thinking about software engineering.

Software Engineer != code monkey

You want to be a software engineer who understands programming concepts and data structures that are applicable across many languages and frameworks, not a code monkey who only knows how to write enterprise apps in one language (or perhaps one OS).

A good university teaches you the former. While it is not impossible to do only the latter, one option is clearly more employable.

ugg ill have to give this a proper response when i get home. YOu certainly are entitled to your opinion.


Sure knowing lots of stuff will make a better programmer, but so many are hardly a necessity, especially linux in particular.(which lets face it, can be a royal pain in the ass to develop MANY complex applications on... and this is coming from a vi guy so...). Dont get me wrong, i believe the world would be a better place if everyone used linux but to claim knowing linux is a necessity for programming....












Honestly white i'd recommend learning programming in a lang like vb (which has many features and whos main point is to be a higher level language, unlike java which tries to lie between). I hate microsoft and all, but vb is pretty sexy and damn near full english not to mention youll learn a lot of the methodologies without being shielded from important concepts (e.g. garbage collection aka cleaning up after yourself). Learn vb in your off time and learn c++ in school. Personally i use vb (among many others) to test my algorithms then implement in c. This way i know that if i encounter any problems, i know that the problem is in my implementation of my algorithm and not the algorithm itself.



All these books are great and w/e but programming is like learning a foreign language, its going to take a while for your brain to actually wrap around and truely comprehend before things start coming naturally. Trust me, i got a wicked learning curve, but it is still going to take a while before you start becoming an avid programmer and start catching yourself making stupid mistakes.

Originally Posted by GReYVee

His courses follow one of two languages. C++ or Java. I personally find VB the least intuitive lexical grammar of .NET languages. Though this is coming from someone who grew up on Pascal / Turbo C.

right. Im suggesting for white to go with c++ and learn vb on his own time. Meh... its bracketless without being whitespace anal... Ahhh ya there you go lol see whites got the opportunity to take advantage of more friendly languages.

Personally, Out of all the languages i've used (and i've used quite a lot), vb is the highest language with the most functionality. Hell its not uncommon for a 100 liner vb program to turn into a 2000 liner c++. Especially with class polymorph'ing... Not many languages explicitly have the overloading, overriding, shadowing, etc functionality that vb provides... Granted, i had to learn c before i really understood what those things were really doing, but thats why i am suggesting white do c++ and learn basic programming in vb during his off time...

I'm with Bunni. I know a lot of languages to a reasonably high level of aptitude. But my go-to language is VB. I've been with VB since version 1. It's a very easy language to learn. It has almost everything C# has. Someone mentioned XNA, which is also supported officially in VB now as well. With mono it's cross platform, and with monodroid you can even make android apps.

It doesn't hold as high a spot as it once had for being THE language to learn if you wanted to make a living, but I think it's still probably the most used language if C# hasn't stolen that crown. But if you know one, you can pick up the other in a VERY short time. It's just syntax with .NET. The framework remains constant for all.

I'm of two minds on the learning to program thing. Low level or high level language... Which to choose. If you are a very methodical person and logic comes naturally to you then go with C/C++. If you struggle a bit with those subjects then you might want to learn something like VB first and let it ease those concepts into your head. I personally started with 65XX machine language when I was about 13 years old. Probably not the smartest move on my part since BASIC was built into my first machine (Commodore Vic-20), but it taught me a lot. Stacks, registers, etc... Then I moved to C on the C64 and later the Amiga. Pascal on the PC. C++ briefly before finding Visual Basic. It took my brain quite a while to wrap itself around the whole event driven system of programming but despite a few forays into Clipper, COBOL, some web-scripty crap like PHP and PERL, and other less well known languages, I always return to VB.

Originally Posted by EBF

A good university teaches you the former. While it is not impossible to do only the latter, one option is clearly more employable.

It's true. Starting salary for programmers at the defense contractor I work for is $60k and they do 90% of their programming for the business unit I work for in C#/VB/Java.

Oh, that isn't where you were going with this? Shame.