Since C and C++ are different languages, would it benefit Daniweb to split the C/C++ forum into separate C and C++ forums?

I prefer them separate once a certain critical mass is reached. Your points here summarize things well. As long as the moderators can separate the two languages on an individual basis when necessary, there is less need for separation in the near future.

In my humble opinion C is the grandma of C++. Do you really want to send her to the old folks home? Maybe it's time to give her a little rest from all those C++ things that just make her head spin anyway.

If you guys who frequent the forum think that there are enough C questions posted to warrant their own forum, I have no problems with it. But please ensure that this would be a smart move - I agree with Julienne about the cross-posting and the people who aren't going to know the difference.

If we indeed do go through with this, gee whiz you're going to want to make the forum index even longer, aren't you? Please don't yell at me and then ban me from the site forever for suggesting that perhaps the new C forum could fall under our Legacy and Less Common Languages area?

IMHO separating C from C++ is not necessary. Now I basically visit only C/C++ forum here in daniweb, then I have to visit two separate forums. Although It's not much of a problem, but I prefer C and C++ to be in the same forum. Even though C++ is covers more materials than C, there are places where they overlap - sometimes it would be difficult to choose which forum to post in. I might want to see both C and C++ solutions to my problem, but then I have to post in two different forums. And when it comes to small problems people just distinguish between C and C++ program by the use of headers, namespace and cout statements. However, the difference is trivial as long as it doesn't deal with OO and generic programming. I find it extraneous to make separate forums. Nevertheless, I believe you guys know better.

C and C++ are certainly diffrent languages; nobody can deny it.
Whenever, I take some C code, without paying attention if it was C or C++, from this site it doesn't work properly on C++ compiler.
So I want C and C++ to be separeted.

It's just a fundamental mistake to lump them together. They are not the same programming language. What you're effectively doing when you say "C/C++" is promulgating a misnomer.

On a forum that caters to helping novice programmers, we should strive for correctness. If people do not know the difference, that's a bad thing, and I feel that we're obligated to tell them. I've talked with recruiters that have asked if the student interviewing knew C and if they could solve a problem on paper in C and more often then not the student inadvertently uses C++ header files such as iostream.h.... I think this has a lot to do with the fact that people are taught that C is a subset of C++ (ie: C++ is C with more functionality).

You have to look no further then memory allocation to make the realization that C and C++ are NOT the same thing. I've seen people write code using a mixture of malloc/free and new/delete!!

C's grammar is different, C's core libraries are different, C does not have objects (encapsulation, polymorphism, inheritance, etc, etc).


Why not just have a more logical seperation at the top-level of the forum to save real estate? Perhaps based on programming paradigm:

Each category could have a sticky note explaining what an Imperative/Declartive/Functional language is

Imperative (C, Basic, FORTRAN, C++, Java, PHP, Perl, Python)
Declarative (Prolog, SQL, etc)
Functional (LISP, Scheme, SML, OCAML, etc)

Also, C is _very_ much a live (even though it feels like its dying.. partly because people want to lump it with "Less Common Languages" :-(). That's insulting. C is one of the fundamental computer languages. It's been around for over 30 years!! How do you think Java was implemented, OpenGL, C++, Linux (and all their drivers), UNIX (and all their drivers), Python, PHP, GTK, BSD, MySQL.... Places like Electronic Arts (EA) require extensive knowledge of C (and all the skills and insight and understanding into a computer system a C programmer has to have to be a great C programmer)....

Systems programming and low-level engineering practices make up a rather large chunk of the IT industry believe it or not. I know that's not what Universities want students to believe any more.. but it's true.

>What you're effectively doing when you say "C/C++" is promulgating a misnomer.
My recommendation to change the name to "C and C++" wasn't accepted, so blame Dani for that one.

>Each category could have a sticky note explaining what an Imperative/Declartive/Functional language is
And you think that people will read the sticky note? That's unlikely, and it's even more unlikely that novices would know that, for example, C is an imperative language.

You're thinking in terms of strict language correctness while we're thinking in terms of usefulness for the community. If there aren't enough C questions, we're faced with an inactive forum. If we lump a bunch of languages under any category, the forums will most likely be inactive. Why do you think I fought to get a bunch of languages (like Python) moved to the highest level? In the end, the close relationship between C and C++ makes the combined thread reasonable to anyone except a language lawyer (and I've come to live with it ).

I'll make you a deal. If you can figure out a way to dispose of one of the main categories in the Software Development list without causing any obvious problems, I'll be willing to try out a separate C forum on a temporary basis. Making the forum list too long is a serious issue, especially since Software Development is at the top, and the majority of Daniweb's members visit the forums down lower more often.

Huh? What? I don't remember that request!


Definitely agree.:mrgreen: However, I'm not keen on the idea of a "temporary basis" because it's a big headache to go through all the threads sorting them between C and C++ in preparation of the grand opening of the new forum. If I'm going to take the time to do that, I want to be sure it's worth the effort

>Huh? What? I don't remember that request!
I could have sworn I mentioned that when we were discussing the forum overhaul. Maybe I was too subtle about it, probably in one of my examples.

>it's a big headache
I can live with your headaches.

>to go through all the threads sorting them between C and C++ in preparation of the grand opening of the new forum
Or you could go with the alternative of just starting with a clean slate. At least that way we can get an idea of how active the forum would be after a month or two.