Re:Why would you learn C++ in 2016?
by userbinator on Tuesday April 12, 2016 @09:51PM
(#11485131)
My preference is to use C++ like a C with some extra useful features, and not "go full C++" by trying to "do everything the C++ way". C++ has a lot of features and is growing but, contrary to what a lot of evangelism seems to say, you are not obliged to use all of them. Use a feature when it makes the code simpler and the effort reduced, don't try to use one and complicate things just because it's a new feature that seems interesting.
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This is how I feel. Even as a Unix/"Pure C" fanboy, just having the STL is a huge time saver.
When I started with C++, I thought the same way. Now, two years later, I look back at all that code and I'm thinking wtf is all that C code doing there. I guess I just appreciate a lot of the C++11 features much more now.
Precisely! Just because the features are there doesn't mean you must use them.
My use case for instance, is to use C++ as C plus the STL (yuck for doing everything manually in C as opposed to having neat classes that are easier to use and equivalent after compilation), useful C++11/14 features like auto type inference or lambdas, PoD structs, and little else.