Separate C and C++ forum?

[Narue]

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

[Dave Sinkula]

I prefer them separate once a certain critical mass is reached. Your points [post=118579]here[/post] 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.

[vegaseat]

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.

[Dani]

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?

[Asif_NSU]

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.

[AhmedHan]

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.

[subtronic]

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.

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).

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?

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.

[Narue]

>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.

[Dani]

>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. ;)

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

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.

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 ;)

[Narue]

>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. :D

>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.

[Dani]

I just went over all the forums, spent a couple of minutes thinking it over, and made some adjustments. The following syntax now holds true:

Sometimes, distinct topics are grouped together into one forum for site navigation and intuitiveness reasons. For example, many people who have an interest in one topic almost always have an interest in the other, as well. For that reason, it doesn't always make sense to split every topic into its own forum, because virtually every topic in the world can be broken down into subtopics. There has to be a place to draw the line.

In addition, it sometimes benefits the community to group multiple topics together, so long as they share a common audience. If everything were broken down into individual topics each catering to only one small particular thing, a single forum would be pretty boring because you'd just see the same questions asked over and over again with no variety.

Some IT communities group all of "Software Development" together into one forum. Other IT communities may separate out C++ for windows from C++ for *nix. It all comes down to how niche the site is and where subdividing starts to go too far.

In any case, I've made the following adjustments:

The word "and" is use as a concatenator among multiple topics contained within a single forum. For example:

C and C++
Computer Science and Engineering
XML and SOAP
JavaScript and DHTML

When three topics are involved, they are concatenated via a comma and ampersand:

HTML, XHTML & CSS
Motherboards, CPUs & RAM

A slash is used to separate multiple versions or incarnations of a particular topic:

Visual Basic 4 / 5 / 6
Windows NT / 2000 / XP / 2003
Windows 95 / 98 / 98se / Me

[subtronic]

I'm sure that I'm making a big deal out of something most people "could give two shits about". I'm sure the C forum would be relatively inactive if there were one and that my motivation is rather one dimensional.

What would be useful is if there were some way to calibrate a thread such that one could deduce from the thread list whether the thread is in the context of C or C++ or *cringe* both via an icon or tag in the heading (ie: [C], [C++], [C/C++])

Anyway... I'll quit being so dramatic.

[vegaseat]

I have looked at some other fora that have separated C and C++. You wouldn't believe the number of C questions that end up in C++ anyway, worse, C++ questions show up in the C area. Maybe we shouldn't separate the two related languages.

By the way, the C++ question to C question ratio runs about 10 to 1. Is this because C++ is so much more complex?

[Narue]

>Is this because C++ is so much more complex?
It's because C++ has more publicity. The "C is dead, C++ is the future" misconception is very common.

[freesoft_2000]

Hi everyone,

I don't think you need to separate them as they are essentially the same language

Richard West

[Narue]

> I don't think you need to separate them as they are essentially the same language
The voice of ignorance strikes again. How, pray tell, are they essentially the same language? Because a tiny subset of C++ will compile as C?

[vegaseat]

> I don't think you need to separate them as they are essentially the same language
The voice of ignorance strikes again. How, pray tell, are they essentially the same language? Because a tiny subset of C++ will compile as C?

Narue, it is Richard West, our "Java, Java ueber alles!" guy! According to him C and C++ should be dead languages by now. Why should he care about a separation?

[Narue]

Narue, it is Richard West, our "Java, Java ueber alles!" guy! According to him C and C++ should be dead languages by now. Why should he care about a separation?

Oh yes, I forgot. He doesn't think they need to be separated because he lumps every language he doesn't understand together as "Dead Languages".

[jwenting]

Many C answers are relevant to C++ as well to some degree even if the reverse isn't always the case.

Therefore a true separation may not be appropriate on purely language boundaries.
Separation on functional boundaries might be more appropriate (general language issues, GUI programming, etc.).

[freesoft_2000]

Hi everyone,

Many C answers are relevant to C++ as well to some degree even if the reverse isn't always the case.

Therefore a true separation may not be appropriate on purely language boundaries.
Separation on functional boundaries might be more appropriate (general language issues, GUI programming, etc.).

Exactly what i mean

Richard West

[usausa]

Its always better for having a Seperate C and C++ forum.
It may be that we dont have more C questions being posted, but in Future if we have a seperate Forum, it will help the new joiners to post.

and also C tutorials and Source code can be posted in that Seperate Section.

This is my opinion. waiting for reply from Moderators.

Thank you.

[rghai6]

Theres not much diff between the 2. so y bother.
plus what u use in c can be easily implemented in c++
and c is dated ... so might as well keep c with c++...

[Dogtree]

>> Theres not much diff between the 2.
Only if you limit yourself to a tiny subset of C++ and use poor style in C. When used correctly and to their fullest, there's a huge difference between C and C++.

>> plus what u use in c can be easily implemented in c++
Most of what you write in C++ can be more easily implemented in Java, or C#, or Perl, or Python, or just about any other language suited to general purpose use. However, none of those languages, including C++, can be used for some systems. For example, there are embedded architectures that lack the resources for a C++ compiler and have no choice but to rely on C or end up using assembly. Such programs are not easily implemented in C++.

>> and c is dated ... so might as well keep c with c++...
That's not a logical argument, dude. If C is dated then it should go in the Legacy Languages forum, not lumped together with C++. And what about C++? It's not any less dated, approaching 30 years. But dated doesn't mean useless or unused. Look at FORTRAN, or COBOL. They're "dead" languages, but still used a lot if you know where to look. The C community is thriving, almost as much as the C++ community. If you don't believe that then look at the activity on the comp.lang.c, comp.lang.c.moderated, and comp.std.c newsgroups. They're active post for post with comp.lang.c++, comp.lang.c++.moderated, and comp.std.c++.

I think a separate C forum is warranted. Not only will it ease the tension of C++ites answering a C question with a C++ solution, it'll give beginners an obvious and powerful alternative to C++. As it is, people will be misled into believing that C and C++ are the same language, or "close enough" as a bunch of posts in this thread are suggesting.

I found C to be a very rewarding language. And knowing C++ didn't change that. I learned a lot from C that I probably wouldn't have if I just kept with C++ and other languages that weren't "dated". I also wouldn't have discovered C if not for some kind soul who told me that C and C++ were totally different languages.

I say that we split the forums.

[BountyX]

There's going to be a lot of cross posting going on between the two. I'm up for it :D

[JJ___]

I personally think that this argument is over something really trivial and some people are going a bit OTTP...

However from what I have read I think a split would be OK.

[Dave Sinkula]

Unstickied.

SEPERATE!

I think the fundamental differences between C and C++ may be few, but the differences there are are vital. It could be confusing to have C and C++ in the same forum, and by seperating them you leave more room for more language specific features that the two languages don't share. :lol: