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Who needs C++ anyway?

Eric Gunnerson has an interesting blog entry comparing C# and C++.  The Computer Science department at CSULB currently uses C++ for most of the programming courses.  I think it would be interesting to switch to C# as the default language.  Would you rather have C# as the main language or do you like C++ or Java better?

-James (California State Univ., Long Beach)

Published Wednesday, January 26, 2005 5:19 PM by kevinbri
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Comments

# re: Who needs C++ anyway?

Wednesday, January 26, 2005 5:52 PM by SBC

good question.. :-)
will post a response there..

# re: Who needs C++ anyway?

Wednesday, January 26, 2005 6:26 PM by Austin
As a freshman in Comp. Eng., and who prefers C#, I think C++ should still be taught over any other languages (C#, java, etc.). Mastering C++ on your own is rather difficult (compared to managed languages).

If you can code good in C++, it'll (generally) transfer to other languages, but the reverse is not true.

# re: Who needs C++ anyway?

Wednesday, January 26, 2005 8:16 PM by Rushi Desai
Depends on what is being taught. I cannot imagine how you'd teach a systems course (OS/Databases/Networking) using C#. At my unknown school in India, the use of a mixture of assembly, C, C++ and Java did the trick really well.

# re: Who needs C++ anyway?

Wednesday, January 26, 2005 9:10 PM by Ashish
C++ is not going anywhere unless VM really get to the nerves of platforms. I think java made a strong comeback with eclipse. We need to fight it out with C# / Visual Studio.NET :-)
Ashish

# re: Who needs C++ anyway?

Thursday, January 27, 2005 5:55 AM by Alex Papadimoulis
As much as I love .NET, I think C++ is a strong educational tool. Pointers, allocating memory, all important concepts right over there.

# re: Who needs C++ anyway?

Thursday, January 27, 2005 6:04 AM by Eric Maino
Austin - I would generally agree with your comment, but I know many C++ developers that don't appear to get the concepts of a managed environment and it's scary.

Ashish - I do see the execution engine getting down closer to the OS and performance someday out performing almost all unmanaged code. If this where the case; Where would you stand then?

Alex - You can teach pointers and such in C# with unsafe code and you can also very easily teach about the allocation of memory.

So yea.. Who really needs C++ anyhow?

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