C++ is dying a slow death
 

Hi everyone,

I just came home from a software conference in nagoya, Japan
where they had any kind of software you can think of on this planet.
There was one talk i went for and i think its quite interesting to have it discussed fully here. Alot of the companies there all said the c language is now nothing more than a relic and dying a slow death and that the new Java 2 has already taken over c programming.

To my personal opinion i think the speaker is more or less right because myself knowing both c and java, i am using c lesser and lesser and more people or companies and even software customers are insisting tht the developers use java for simple tasks which can even be perfomed by c.

Then i sat back and thought for awhile that i remembered that when i was doing programming in c++ just to have the c++ system to display the entire system fonts in a combobox was a headache and took a least 200 lines of code but when i used java 2 to do that same exact task and also displaying
the system fonts in a combobox it only required me to write 40 lines of code and it was a breeze.

Basically what i think is that the c language has had a good run but nothing lasts forever. Even when i consult most developers they say that the c language is slowly dissapearing. When i started looking at the programming architecture of the new java 2 swing they had at the conference, i became more convinced that the c language has come to an end.

Java swing has been able to create so many products such as web browsers, alot of other applications and yes even an operating system which i tried and its program execution speed is twice that of windows and its very user friendly. The operating system is not out yet but should hit markets in the middle of 2005.

Being very interested i asked their chief engineer how they managed to develop this and he said this was possible as java tends to become self realiant. He then told me that by the end of this year any applications made in java will not depend on anything on the windows operating system thus having its own common controls and not even using the windows.sysytem.forms.ocx controls. Then i asked him what about the kernel. He said the kernel can be created using asm or simply using free dos programs such as freedos but also to distribute them freely.

well i really hope some of you guys would comment on my posting here and make this a very fruitful discussion for everyone to enjoy

Thank You

Yours Sincerely

Richard West

Re: C++ is dying a slow death
 

You still need to think about this from the user end, alot of people hate java applications as they look ugly and are resource hogs (at least the old java was, not sure about java 2)

I know i dont want more programs to be done in java, which seem slower to me.

Re: C++ is dying a slow death
 

*Yawn*

We are managed languages. Developers, you will be assimilated. Resistance is futile.

Re: C++ is dying a slow death
 

For those of us simple of mind would you care to explain that :cheesy: in simpler terms?

Thanks, BuddyB

Re: C++ is dying a slow death
 

*Yawn*, me too.Who cares ???.We will have to use what ever the policy making companies shove at us.Yup it's quite too the OpenSource is only open before money comes in.It's like water,can dissolve anything given enough time.Brrr

<b>Resistance is futile.</b>

Nah......,You can do that till you are dead :D,and even then you can leave followers to do your work.

So after you are gone,what do you care :D .

Re: C++ is dying a slow death
 

hi everyone,
Firstly the first java was not that good but apparently after seeing things first hand for the new java 2. The thing about open source is that it is not like dissolving things in water because what you are talking about is market saturation which is no body ever gets tired of getting free software or at least reasonably priced ones and this has nothing to do with any policy but about change.

When you have been doing something for decades you tend to realize that change is inevitable. And why yawn just like all those people who criticised the early dot com boom.

I remember those times when a lot of guys were telling me Richard why don't you get into the boom. In and out fast but all i did was yawned and i am still working while all those other guys are now staying in two storey bungalows with three cars with pools.

Maybe my putting up this post is for you guys to learn a mistake made by an oldie like myself and prevent yourselves from making these same mistakes. Its easy to criticise but not easy to do something and maybe when you're gone you hope someone to refer to you as that person who created free enterprise and not just another developer.

Always think out the box as the world is not as forgiving as you think. Creativity is not overated

Yours Sincerely

Richard West

Re: C++ is dying a slow death
 

thats all true ... I've heard about a java operating system too that is coming by the mid of 2005 ... it is really fast .... more and more people feel java a very easy language to learn ... like me ... I learned c++ first and then java ... and now I only program in java .... or some little programming that is system dependent ... I do it in c++.

Re: C++ is dying a slow death
 

A managed language is something like Java or Microsoft .NET (C#, VB.NET, etc).. they are managed by a virtual machine, and programming on them is not operating system dependant. You don't need to worry about allocating memory, saving files in the OS's native format, etc...

Re: C++ is dying a slow death
 

C++ out, java in????????????
I see Bjarne Stroustrup(hope i get the spelling correct) burning in jeolousy.:p

But, it's actually hard to believe...;)

And I would like to add something from Stroustrup's website too....about c++ emerging with its new look...

Re: C++ is dying a slow death
 

So, like what's going on? I just started to learn C++ a few weeks ago. Umm! What's the deal. I don't wana learn it then just have to throught all of thoses hard days of work down the toilet. AHHH! I have absolutly no idea what the heck is going on!

Re: C++ is dying a slow death
 

hi everyone,
You do not have to worry tusky as java syntax is similar to C++

Yours Sincerely

Richard West

Re: C++ is dying a slow death
 

Hello,

It is spelled beans.

And no, your efforts to learn C++ are not going to go to waste. You should be learning coding style, learning that comments are just as important as the actual code, and learning about data structures and algorithms. Perhaps even efficient code... there are many ways to do things.

Continue to grow with C++. You might not ever master it, but you will learn a lot of things from it.

Christian

Re: C++ is dying a slow death
 

yeah ..lol ..conversation got heavy ;)

Re: C++ is dying a slow death
 

In my latest issue of InfoWorld, there is a great column written by Tom Yager. It'a a great read:

Title: Efficiency can be lost on code snobs: So many problems don’t get solved because we overthink the project

At my local Ace hardware store, circular saws sit near the registers to tempt impulse buyers. When Ace sells you that saw, they’ve also got you for blades, safety glasses, and handy little accessories. But Ace isn’t the only beneficiary in this “sell the saw, sell the store� arrangement. Simply having the saw turns some neglected, avoided projects into adventures. For the buyer, the saw is an inspiration: “Get the saw, fix the house.�

The circular saws of software development are dynamic languages such as Perl, Python, PHP, and JavaScript, as well as RAD (rapid application development) tools such as Visual Studio. The better of these allow you to leap straight to solving problems without paying your dues by learning the underlying OS, low-level APIs, and networking architecture. There’s no studying of patterns, models, or methods. It’s like buying lumber, nails, and a saw without deep study in the properties of wood and fasteners. A carpenter would be aghast that you’re not an expert at operating a handsaw. A true developer will gossip about you for using a PHP database class without knowing much about how the database on the other end works. Both will warn that you’re courting disaster.

We’ll always need expert tools, structured processes, and people who can ply both to create bulletproof apps. But we also need tools that allow us to attack projects that would otherwise be out of reach. In modern computing, the limit of one’s reach is marked by the limit of one's understanding of the platform and user environment. For a large class of applications, that need not be so. Most of the problems we solve every day aren’t nearly as complicated as popular tools, languages, and frameworks.

I’m reminded of the near-miracles I’ve worked in JavaScript and shell scripts, and even in quick-and-dirty C or C++. I’ve knowingly made things harder for myself by setting aside these tools as cheats, shortcuts suitable only for prototyping. As I look at my straining bookshelves of volumes on .Net and Java, I’m reminded of the vast numbers of problems I haven’t approached because I insist on using the right tools the proper way. Being a code snob has distinct disadvantages.

Look, a fence made by a first-timer is a successful project if it remains standing and looks presentable; it’s better than letting the old fence rot because it’s more of a job than you can handle. Just go buy your saw. Read the safety instructions, buy a little more lumber than you need, and pick up one of those skinny Time Life books about home repair and improvement.

Technique and process are irrelevant unless your point is to impress someone who does for a living what you plan to try. Given sufficiently fast computers, prototypes that work to spec are potentially deployable applications. One project that helped restore my perspective is an administrative tool I created for OS X Server. It allows me to send magic packets to machines in my lab while I’m on the road. The right way would have been to write this entirely in Cocoa, Apple’s native framework. The next best way would have been to write it all in Java. I’m sure I could have used AppleScript, a language that I cannot describe in publishable terms. Maybe I should have used Java. In the end, I wrote a shell script that calls into AppleScript for its GUI. It worked the first time. Now I’m heading for that fence. I’m on a roll.

Re: C++ is dying a slow death
 

hello everyone,
One thing to note is that when are i read the thread in the computer science section about what the .net framework is i feel that the posters there seem to be describing java. Once a good friend of mine told me that microsoft's .net
framework is nothing but a ripoff of java. Well that's my opinion

WHAT DO YOU THINK???????

ps. I do not hate or have anything against microsoft

Yours Sincerely

Richard West

Re: C++ is dying a slow death
 

Microsoft .NET is simply Java written how it should have been written ;-).

No, actually, there are some major differences between the two. To start off, Java is a language, and Microsoft .NET is an application framework. In fact, you can compile java code to Microsoft .NET have them run as native .NET applications.

Re: C++ is dying a slow death
 

Meabed is my favorite person because he/orshe has that TFT icon!!! woohoo!!

Re: C++ is dying a slow death
 

About the original topic: Languages are long lived and possibly immortal beings. There will always be C++ somewhere. Don't forget our Y2K fears about that ancient dino Cobol.

Re: C++ is dying a slow death
 

Have you tried programming with Java and Eclipse's SWT? SWT GUI apps are actually quite comparable to native C++ programs. Java doesn't have to be slow, ugly, or a resource hog.

Check out Eclipse (http://eclipse.org) and see if you can believe it's a java program.


Ed

Re: C++ is dying a slow death
 

i told my dad what the guy said about C++ dyin a slow death and he laughed his ass off, and thought it was the funnies shit he had heard. hes been coding for oooo since he was about 20, and hes in his late fourties now, so when he heard that he was laughing soo hard becaus he knows that java could never beat out C++, he explained it better than i can right now, but if i can ill get him to say it again, because all his points were valid and good and probably would make a better impact then anything i could say.

Re: C++ is dying a slow death
 

Hey, I'll bet my dad can beat your dad up...

Anyways, I'm glad I read this because I was undecided as to which subject to take a course on between the two respective subjects discussed in this thread, and I've decided to go with C++ first.

Re: C++ is dying a slow death
 

I think C++ has been always kind of dead. The only major software i can think of that was written in C++ is Mozilla and Qt (Even though major implementaion of these software was rendered in C). I don't know why people like C++ so much, when you can achieve object oriented design through C. GTK and Gnome are perfect examples of that. Plus a lof of people still prefer writing code in pure Win32 API rather than messy MFC.

True object orientation cannot be achieved without a true Object Oriented Operating System.

Re: C++ is dying a slow death
 

What about the development of videogames?

Re: C++ is dying a slow death
 

C/C++ won't die.

Re: C++ is dying a slow death
 

You can develop video games in any language out there. Heck, you can write it in JavaScript if you'll write a compiler for it. The key developing method in modern video games is accessing Video Hardware through series of interrupt calls via pure assembly. As long as you do that, you can lay any language on top of your hardware code.

Any modern operating system does not know what Class or an Object is.
Every code that is loaded in memory is represented as such: Text segment (that's what the C functions are), Stack (local variables in C), and the Heap (dynamic memory - whatever is allocated via malloc() and such). This program set-up can't get any more perfect for C (or any other procedual language - not C++, Java or C#).
In addition all core OS service libraries (Kernel32.dll or libc.so in Linux) were made to be used with C primarely. OpenGL API is also made primarily to be used with C. Qt, KDE, (and whatever the hell else written in C++) all lay on top of the X Windowing system which is a C language API. Even .NET stays on top of the Win32 API.

I can't wait till someone will write an OS Kernel in C++. (Please don't mention anything about the "Choices" operating system")

How important is C++ (was: C++ is dying a slow death)
 

I am looking for any kind of numbers that proof this right or wrong. Does anybody know about a (citable) study that shows numbers like,

- the estimated existing code base (lines of code)
- the estimated number of developers
- the estimated number of projects still beeing developed in C/C++
- ... anything else that can be used to compare the importance of C/C++ and Java in the "real world".


Anybody an idea where I can look for such a study?

Regards

Daniel Lohmann

Re: C++ is dying a slow death
 

I'm a free lancer who knows many different languages, and to be honest I find languags like Java to be VERY overated. Making GUI's in Java is a headache and well, if you want the whole portability thing with your program, QT has a great API thats portable on almost any system, and processing time is not sacraficed.

As a free lancer, my job is to get things done fast, good-looking, and efficiently. The language is your tool, sometimes you need a screw driver, some times you need a hammer. I devloped many projects for Mac, Linux, and windows, using common API frameworks such as QT. After Learning Java, I have yet to really use it on a project.

One thing is for sure though, it dosn't matter hwo you get the job done, as long as it gets done on time!

Re: C++ is dying a slow death
 

Banana? Banana? Banana? Banana? Banana?

Re: C++ is dying a slow death
 

:mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

Re: C++ is dying a slow death
 

your joking right?? lol C++ already kind of dead. ill laugh really hard at that. then remind you that most everything is writtin in C++, not just one webbrowser.

Re: C++ is dying a slow death
 

There is big difference between C and C++. "Most everything" is written in C.

Re: C++ is dying a slow death
 

actually alot of things are writtin in C++ and i know the difference. to a certain degree i do know the difference, i dont claim to have all the knowledge, just enough that i do know the difference.

Re: C++ is dying a slow death
 

Hi everyone

I guess its sad but true, i have been in VC++ for past 2 years but the air around is for more simpler means of coding. Its getting tougher to find VC guys and new techies are not paying attention to it. They are more inclined to C#. Forget that Microsoft seems to be more inclined to push everyone to C# as it has removed the VC Certification Track isnt that sad ...

Re: C++ is dying a slow death
 

Hi...


I think it's too early to say that C/C++ is dead or even dying. I'll belive in its death only after at least one OS will be written in Java 2, most of software for it will be written in Java 2 and this OS will be as popular as MS Windows or Linux today. But until all those terms aren't true I'll never belive that C/C++ is dead.

Re: C++ is dying a slow death
 

Well i think the simple fact that you can write system level programs and use asm code really brings the power to c and c++ but for aplication programming i can see why c/c++ is dying, alot of programming firms only use vb an vc because of the plain and simple fact is that you don't have to make so many calls to windows functions. But because you can program at so much lower of a leval the possabilitys are endless with c/c++ so to speak.

Re: C++ is dying a slow death
 

Almost everything these days are written in C++. Lets think of numerous videogames, especially Diablo II, warcraft 3, etc.

How many other languages can you do system level programming and retain portability? Not Java...

Re: C++ is dying a slow death
 

I don't think you understand how video games are written... Those games use 3D Rendering things like OpenGL and DirectX, which is just as available on the .NET platform. In fact, Quake 2 has been ported to the .NET framework: http://www.vertigosoftware.com/Quake2.htm

Also, there is NO way to do low level programming and retain portablity. A PowerPC processor will not understand low level x86 code, no matter what language you develop in. In fact, Java and .NET is the answer to the problem of portability.

Re: C++ is dying a slow death
 

An interesting topic. Especially the article posted by Tekmaven.

My dad is a carpenter. He always tells me stories how the younger guys go and grab the power saw to cut a single piece of wood when a handsaw would suffice.

I will admit I am a victim of this. I took a few C++ classes followed by a Java class. I remember what nightmare it was to write a multi-threaded program in C++ and how easy it was in Java. Java seems to have took the logical thinking out of dealing with threads. At least is far simplier then it was in C++.

After reading this, I can appreciate what I did in my C++ data structures class. I had to write my own searching and sorting algorithims, my own hash table, I wrote an array class that functioned like a vector. At the time I was like "why can't I just use the STL?" Now I know why.

Re: C++ is dying a slow death
 

hi everyone,
hivework is more or less right because there are really a lot of programs written in c there are not much written in c++. As for windows function calls there are a lot of other programming languages in the market that can match c++ like
tcl. Basically for squires what you are saying is that why mow the lawn with a lawn mower when you can equally as well use a scissors. Yes they both get the job done. Anyone that has tried to use the mfc classes to write a simple ftp client will understand what i mean. The mfc can be very messy and yes tekmaven is right in that most games need to rendering like OpenGL and only the interfacing part is programmed in c++ but can also been done by Java 2. One more thing is that asm is a low level language and c++ is a high level language thus mixing them both can cause your program to lose a lot of portability. Yes a lot of firms used to use vb but a lot of them fealt cheated after the release of vb.net as vb.net seems to a different language altogether.

As for bountyx's question
rapid-q, tcl, tkinter, jython, python,java2
Just naming from the top of my head

One thing to note is that change is the hardest thing to accept

Thank You

Yours Sincerely

Richard West

Re: C++ is dying a slow death
 

i dont think the Game Industry will let C++ die that easily. I have seen what Tekmavenâ„¢ said about games programming, but with due respect to him I have seen almost all the game studios asking for programmers who are well-experienced in c/c++, actually among all the necessary qualifications required to get the job of a games programmer "skilled in c/c++" stands at the top. I have yet to see any famous game studio looking for a full-time games programmer experienced in a programmnig language other than c/c++.

I have very little knowledge about DirectX, but as far as I know DirectX is just like a library with functions and classes and u need programming languages like C++ or Visual Basic to code according to those functions (i.e call them) to make the graphics card do ur bidding. And my speculation is that like any other program it will depend on the language it was written with as how fast it will work with the Hardware. I dont see any of Java's execution engines topping C++ in that case, since games programming now-adays strive to get the fastest possible execution and thanx only to C\C++ that's coping up with that. As far as I know unlike C++ Java doesnt even support Multiple Inheritance which I believe plays a vital role in games design.