Linked by Roberto J. Dohnert on Wed 28th Jul 2004 17:23 UTC
Most of us that work in the IT industry have been around for a long time. We started out in our parents basement writing code in some BASIC environment, ussually Commodore BASIC or QBASIC. Do you remember how thrilling it was? Your first program and it was something extremely basic but the point was it worked. Some of us got hooked right away and kept trying to solve problems and added more and more pushing the capabilities of whatever language we used. As we got older the environments progressed and the programming tools progressed and got more complicated.
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Some good points being made regarding my original post singing the praises of the STL. Here is some follow up:
One poster said you can't use the STL in embedded environments. True, but trying using VB or Python in embedded environments. Plus, I doubt very much that "hobbyist" programmers are doing too much embbedded stuff.
Also, the STL is not perfect, but it's there to save tons of time and make the programmer's life potentially a lot easier.
Sure, there are still other pitfalls in C++, but most of that is due to not using the library.
Another poster objected to my reference to C++ being "as high level as you could want", saying that it falls short of other higher level languages. This poster (and others) should try QT and it's GUI design tool, QT Designer. Then use Kate to manage the project, alter code, and compile the program (with Kate's built in terminal). This is about as easy as it gets, even exceeding VB IMHO (and I've used VB, along with VC++, professionally for 6 years).
This gets back to libraries, and adds in good visual tools, to complement basic C++ language facilities, making life easier for the C++ programmer. With proper use of both standard and extension/proprietary liabraries, and good IDE's or editors, C++ becomes very easy and productive indeed. REally, when you look at it, a language is only as powerful and easy as it's supporting libraries and tools allow.
Now, all of that said, I would not direct a noobie or a total hobbyist to use C++ as a first language. I would probably point them to Python on Linux/Unix, and VB on Windows. Then I would encourage them to dive into C++ after they get their feet wet, and experience the power, efficiency, and flexibility of this excellent language.
And I'm not a language zealot. I believe in using the best tool for the job. I just like to defend and promote C++, because I've discovered what a powerful (and fun) language it can be.