C++ , likes/dislikes?

[iago]

gcc!

A C++ compiler can also compile C code. 

[MyndFyre]

MSVC is free too   http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=272be09d-40bb-49fd-9cb0-4bfa122fa91b&DisplayLang=en

Incidentally, static variables work differently in C than C++.  Static variables in C still had scope, typically at function-level:

Code: [Select]

void doSomething(int a) {
  static int num;
  num += a; // probably will generate a compiler error, as num is unassigned.
}

In C++, "static" variables are supposed to belong to a class as opposed to an instance of the class (like in Java and C#).

[iago]

MSVC is free too   http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=272be09d-40bb-49fd-9cb0-4bfa122fa91b&DisplayLang=en

Incidentally, static variables work differently in C than C++.  Static variables in C still had scope, typically at function-level:

Code: [Select]

void doSomething(int a) {
  static int num;
  num += a; // probably will generate a compiler error, as num is unassigned.
}

In C++, "static" variables are supposed to belong to a class as opposed to an instance of the class (like in Java and C#).

Yeah, the example I gave, and the one that RaBBiT wanted, was in a class.  So that's C++. 

[MyndFyre]

It wouldn't make sense to make a globally-static variable outside of a function in C, because that was the beauty of static variables; they retained their value from one function call to the next.

[Hauptmann Raub]

I dislike MSVCC.  The port of GNU MingW+MSYS for Win32 is an awesome compiler, which can be extended to compile C++, Java, and Assembly (it comes with C compiling).  I really like it.

One thing I dislike about C++ (mostly due to learning VB6 first), is that I can't use a globally accessible variable (IE: class main has a value, but I need to pass an instance of main to every other class so that I can access 1 variable).  It's very annoying, but I've gotten somewhat used to it.

You're talking about a "static" variable. 

Code: [Select]

class A
{
public:
  static int a = 3;
};

...........
A.a = 5; // no instance of A! Just the class itself!

I don't think that'll compile, since I seem to remember that C++ has something stupid about static variables, but yeah. 

Anyway, is the book on C or C++?

C is invaluable to learn.  Once you know C, any other language is fairly easy.  If you ever plan to do anything low-level, like hardware programming or even game hacks, you're going to be doing it in C.  C has been around for 25 years, and isn't going anywhere. 

I love how C code looks.  It's nice code, if you know it well you can do anything.  You can even do object oriented-style programming in C, and I like doing it in C a lot better than C++.


C++, I don't like.  It's shambled together on top of C, and makes thing more complicated.  In trying to maintain their reverse compatibility with C, they added a lot of kludges and workarounds that make code really ugly (like static class variables have to be initialized outside of the class, or something like that).  C++ code tends to be much more mangled and ugly than the equivalent C code.  I very much dislike C++.  If I intend to do something object-oriented, I use Java.  Java wasn't trying to maintain reverse compatibility, so it's a lot nicer. 

It's like comparing IA-64 assembly to HP-Tru64.  HP-Tru64 was designed and built to be 64-bit.  So it's faster and cleaner.  IA-64, on the other hand, maintains reverse compatibility with 32-bit and 16-bit, and, as such, is pretty ugly. 

Anything other than static integral values need to be defined outside the class.

[Joe]

cpp (the GNU thing), MSVC++ 98 (talk to xar (IRC)), Bloodshed Dev-Cpp

[mfqr]

What are some likes and dislikes from the people that code it?

Likes:
- Fast and small binary files
Dislikes:
- After learning VB, this is hard++.

Should I learn another programming language before jumping into this one?

I think Java is a lot easier than C++, yet uses the same basic syntax, so you should probably learn a bit of that first.

What's a good compiler I can use on a WinXP box?

I settle for MSVC++.

yeah from what I've read, cpp is fast, but cant the binaries sometimes get really big too? I guess i'm sort of comparing this to asm. is it true that some asm binaries can be down to bytes even? like 25 bytes?

[MyndFyre]

Yeah that's true, but rarely will a system load a code-only binary except at boot time (files such as ntldr are code-only).  They're hard to trust, and the extra information helps to keep the system safe.

[iago]

Sure, an assembly file can be 25 bytes, but it's useless. 

Any program (assembly or c++) has to call library functions to be useful.  Often, the libraries are included in the executable, which makes it pretty big.