Ask HN: Should I learn C++ in 2019?

Re:Ask HN: Should I learn C++ in 2019? by davismwfl on Saturday August 17, 2019 @09:42AM (#20723984)

Depends what you want to do. I love writing C/C++ still and it still drives the majority of things you interact with daily, especially low level systems. People argue that all the time, but almost every device you touch has a micro controller today and almost all of those are using C or C++. Even large complex systems still use C or C++ as a primary toolset still to this day.

My 2 cents, if you get out of the echo chamber of SV and tech startups C/C++ are still very much alive and in many cases growing in usage. Inside SV and tech startups C/C++ are both treated like the elderly family member people just put up with but dismiss, when in reality that person has a shit ton of knowledge everyone could learn from.

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Re:Ask HN: Should I learn C++ in 2019? by nideguy on Saturday August 17, 2019 @10:36AM (#20724229)

I have been weigh which is the easier language to write lexical, parser and code generation for a new programming language. Is C or C++ the idea to start?

To compile to machine code, not bytecode.

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Re:Ask HN: Should I learn C++ in 2019? by davismwfl on Saturday August 17, 2019 @11:03AM (#20724361)

You'll find many compilers and parsers are written in C, it gives great portability across platforms and gives the best performance. Whether you write in C or C++ I'd think is more a matter of design choices for a parser and code gen tool. I'd probably go with C++ myself, but either is completely reasonable. You'll also be able to find lots of examples online in C/C++.

Also in this case while there are some compiler differences between platforms for C/C++ they are well documented and known. If you stay in the middle of the language and don't try to use fringe features of the language or a specific compiler then you won't have any issues. People that complain about portability or GCC etc are generally using language extensions of a specific platform compiler which can make portability a pain.

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Re:Ask HN: Should I learn C++ in 2019? by nideguy on Saturday August 17, 2019 @11:21AM (#20724459)

Thanks, I have seen Lex, Yacc, Bison, do they still used in the industry?

Some used LLVM and some used GCC/Clang, I'm splitting over which is a better choice to build "statically typed" programming language.

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Re:Ask HN: Should I learn C++ in 2019? by davismwfl on Saturday August 17, 2019 @04:20PM (#20726092)

I'd argue it is mainly personal preference. But it goes to my point that if you stay in the middle of language features and don't use compiler language extensions it won't matter.

When I set my projects up I generally use gcc/g++, but that in no means is the only correct way. Just a personal preference given the number of platforms that gcc supports, including embedded.

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