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I actually think you'd go far to spend 3 - 4 months learning C++. Almost every language you can likely encounter in your career will use some feature that will

I actually think you'd go far to spend 3 - 4 months learning C++. Almost every language you can likely encounter in your career will use some feature that will get introduced to you in C++, especially modern C++, and, almost any language will be easier to learn and use after first going through a C++ learning curve. Besides, C++ is still the big player, more than all others. Even Apple's new language Swift is written in C++. It's a good language to know something about. It also sets you into a different category of programmers, from what I have found recently, since C++ techniques are not taught much in college programs any more (based on my conversations with recent CS grads), which really surprises me. It's a special skill that would set you apart if you know it.

pcwalton 11y ago
This is a weird answer to the question, especially since Rust very probably has whatever "modern C++ techniques" you were thinking of.
- hellofunk 11y ago
  I disagree. As others have pointed out, the demand for C++ jobs is still much higher than Rust jobs, so I think my answer still stands as a way to set yourself apart when thinking of a new language to spend a few months on. Ideally, one would learn Rust and C++ both and see how they differ, and why.
  - pcwalton 11y ago
    > I disagree. As others have pointed out, the demand for C++ jobs is still much higher than Rust jobs, so I think my answer still stands as a way to set yourself apart when thinking of a new language to spend a few months on. It's not going to be a particularly interesting thread if everyone who works in a language that trends higher than Go on Google chimes in to say "you should learn my language instead, because it's more popular". > Ideally, one would learn Rust and C++ both and see how they differ, and why. Aside from uninteresting language-specific details, C++ essentially doesn't teach you anything that Rust doesn't.
    - hellofunk 11y ago
      >It's not going to be a particularly interesting thread if everyone who works in a language that trends higher than Go on Google chimes in to say "you should learn my language instead, because it's more popular". I think C++ is unique in that it is really not as popular as many new languages, not as trendy and as much in the news, and not even taught as much in college programs, yet, it remains the language where so many jobs are. This gives anyone with the desire to learn it a good and marketable skill that can make it possibly easier to find work and continue making a living doing software development. That does not apply to Rust, so I think it's a fair point to make to anyone who is asking about what languages are good to learn. As for whether C++ has any techniques to teach that Rust does not, C++ is definitely a unique experience to go through and certainly gives a developer more insight into the actual machine they are working on in a way that few languages do.
      - pcwalton 11y ago
        > it remains the language where so many jobs are "The" language where so many jobs are? It's one of many. > As for whether C++ has any techniques to teach that Rust does not, C++ is definitely a unique experience to go through and certainly gives a developer more insight into the actual machine they are working on in a way that few languages do. Can you name, specifically, a way in which C++ gives you "more insight into the actual machine" compared to Rust?
        hellofunk 11y ago
        I think that Rust simplifies some things that you must do yourself in C++, and learning how to do them is valuable. At the very least, it will help you appreciate other languages, but it can also show you areas where you get manual control over performance in ways no other language offers. And, perhaps most significantly, there are a wealth of C++ libraries out there that have no equivalent in other languages, and being able to use them is an education in itself.
        cjfont 11y ago
  - nickpsecurity 11y ago
    You must say the same thing about COBOL in other threads. Demand for it remains high with people getting paid a premium in some areas for the shortage. Something like a billion lines of it out there. Microfocus is probably hiring, too. So, anyone following your argument should skip C++ and learn COBOL because COBOL is easier to learn, in widespread use, and has jobs available.
    - hellofunk 11y ago
      Interesting point. I was curious about this, and turned to Wikipedia: >In 2006 and 2012, Computerworld surveys found that over 60% of organizations used COBOL (more than C++ and Visual Basic .NET) and that for half of those, COBOL was used for the majority of their internal software. 36% of managers said they planned to migrate from COBOL, and 25% said they would like to if it was cheaper. Instead, some businesses have migrated their systems from expensive mainframes to cheaper, more modern systems, while maintaining their COBOL programs.
      - nickpsecurity 11y ago
        It was an extremely, easy-to-use language that even laypeople could write business logic in. Similar to how BASIC got so many people started. Except, Fortune 500 companies were writing all their backend stuff in COBOL on mainframes from the 60's onward. Needless to say, there's a lot of it around dependent on existing libraries, interfaces, language variants, compilers, etc. Porting it is huge risk. So, they just maintain and extend it. Main vendor even has it on Visual Studio: http://www.microfocus.com/solutions/cobol/index.aspx http://www.microfocus.com/solutions/cobol/index.aspx The job is boring, predictable, and 9-5-ish at most places. Exactly what some types of people are looking for. They figure they can play with the fun stuff at home. One person even jokingly made a web framework for it: COBOL on Cogs. So, yeah, I throw COBOL at anyone using the "use language X for users or jobs" argument to see how they react to what they're actually arguing. Interesting that you at least looked it up and didn't go into denial mode. I'm impressed. ;)
- Animats 11y ago
  Learning C++ means you have to learn a lot about how to debug C++, and understand exactly what's going on at the machine, OS, and debugger level. Whether this is a productive use of your life is up to you.
- shin_lao 11y ago
  Not really. From a carreer perspective you are 100% certain that there will be a lot of demand for C++ in 5 years (since the whole IT infrastructure is written either in C or in C++), whereas for Rust you are taking a huge bet.
  - hellofunk 11y ago
    Exactly, C++ has been around for a very long time, so much runs on it, depends on it, and it is not going anywhere any time in our lifetimes, I'm certain of that. That makes it a very valuable skill. You can always study the newer languages when interested in them (I find them all fascinating), but for a deep leg into the way the industry works at its core, I think knowing C++ gets you very far. Google touts Go a lot, but so much of Google's tools are actually C++ at heart (protobufs and Chrome for example), and Apple touts Swift and has its own frameworks in Objective-C and now Swift, but under the hood, so much of their toolkits and the language of Swift itself are implemented in C++; nearly all cross-platform games we know and love for a wide variety of devices and OS are C++ -- my point is that it is a crucial language and it does not hurt to understand it.
  - seren 11y ago
    Maybe my perspective is biased because I work in a very conservative industry, but a large part of C++ jobs in the next 5 years will likely be about maintenance/evolution of massive legacy C++98/C++03 applications. And you won't likely use a lot of C++14 or C++17, while on the other hand the rare Rust project might be a bit more exciting. But if you're primary motivation to learn a new language is to get a job, Cpp is surely a safer bet.
    - pcwalton 11y ago
      > a large part of C++ jobs in the next 5 years will likely be about maintenance/evolution of massive legacy C++98/C++03 applications This is exactly right, and it's been true for many years now. That your old codebase is written in C++ is a totally legitimate reason to use C++.
- jbandela1 11y ago
  Rust lacks higher kind types which C++ has had in the form of template templates since 1998. Rust also lacks the equivalent of variadic templates. If you want to see where that is different take a look at generic tuple manipulation in C++11 vs Rust.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - pcwalton 11y ago
    And Rust has other features that no shipping version of C++ has, like full-featured pattern matching, lifetimes, and concepts. These are features you will use hugely more often than template templates and variadic generics. But really, what's the point? The reasons you'd learn a low-level systems language are to learn how to manage memory and resources, to learn how to explicitly lay out data and to understand how to program without a runtime. Both Rust and C++ will teach you these.
wobbleblob 11y ago
The problem is that C++ is a language where the "top 150,000 most essential things to get you started with C++" is a volume that spans several book shelves. Even Bjarne Stroustrup allegedly rated his own C++ skills at maybe 7 out of 10. If you start with C++, you're committed to a multi year project, that's what it takes to advance from novice to junior level.
- hellofunk 11y ago
  Sorry but this is just wrong. You do not need several years to get productive in C++. Very few professional C++ developers are using every feature of the language. You could spend a year mastering template metaprogramming alone, but do you need it? Not most of the time. Interfacing with good C++ libs (another reason to learn C++) does not require metaprogramming, and many other features fall into a the same category. Saying there are 150,000 required learning points is sensationalism and just downright false.
  - wobbleblob 11y ago
    Junior level is when you know all language features, and are starting to learn the ecosystem of tools and libraries. You're probably much smarter or more dedicated than me if you feel this level can be reached in a much shorter time.
    - dagw 11y ago
      Junior level is when you know all language features Wow, in that case I don't think I've ever worked with anybody who's ever managed to reach "junior level" in any language. What do you call someone with, for example, just a PhD in the relevant field, 6 or 7 years of professional programming experience and several successfully shipped products under his belt. And what do you call the guy that is obviously his junior?
      - wobbleblob 11y ago
        When someone with a PhD in the relevant field, 6 or 7 years of professional programming experience and several successfully shipped products under his belt starts learning something new, he's a junior at that new thing.
jbandela1 11y ago
I think that is a great answer. I actually see some parallels between the relationship of Rust/C++ to Scala/Java. Both basically use the backend of the established language and provide an 'improved' language on top of it. Scala uses the JVM, and Rust uses LLVM. What is interesting is that with the release of Java 8, a lot of Scala early adopters and cutting back their investment in Scala in favor of Java (for exampled LinkedIn). This is despite the fact that Scala is widely used in production, has a killer app in Spark, and allows pretty seamless use of the Java library. Now compare this to Rust. Rust also provides an 'improved' language in the same space as C++ utilizing LLVM. However, what is interesting is the nature of the improvements. The biggest feature of Rust is the memory safety. However, the memory safety is not a productivity improvement as more of a safety improvement. Unlike garbage collection where you just do not have to think about memory allocation issues, Rust forces you to think about ownership and mutability. That same exact thinking will allow you to pretty much get the same memory safety in C++ using unique_ptr and shared_ptr and const. The difference is that the compiler makes you think about it in Rust. Much like Scala inspired the adoption of features for Java, you can see C++ adopting pretty much the borrow checker as a tool - see Herb Sutter's talk at CppCon 2015 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEx5DNLWGgA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEx5DNLWGgA . As the experience with Scala shows, the adopted features of the established language do not have to perfectly match the 'improved' language to convince people to migrate back to the established language. The adopted features just have to be in the ballpark. I think the new C++ tooling will be in the ballpark in much the same way that Java 8 is in the same ballpark as Scala and remove much of the impetus for moving to Rust from C++. In addition, Rust is not as well positioned as Scala. Scala is actually deployed in production and has a killer application. Rust has no major production deployments of which I am aware and no killer application (the equivalent of Spark). In addition, while Rust can interface with C libraries, Rust cannot interface with C++ libraries unlike Scala which can interoperate with the Java standard library. Rust has some brilliant aspects just like Scala has some brilliant aspects. However, C++ (like Java) is not sitting still but has been incorporating the best ideas. In addition, when people choose a system language, they are inherently conservative because the system they are creating will typically be long lived and mission critical. If you are writing something that you hope will power your company for the next 20 years, do you want to go with a language created and driven by Mozilla with no major use in production, or with the language that powers Google, Microsoft, Apple, and Facebook? Here is what I recommend. Learn C++11/14/17. Learn Haskell to really open your mind to what is possible. Learn Rust to learn about the borrow checker. Then apply what you have learned to make yourself a better C++ programmer. Some of the best, most insightful C++ programmers I know are people who are actually well-versed in other languages, especially functional programming languages.

pcwalton 11y ago

This is a weird answer to the question, especially since Rust very probably has whatever "modern C++ techniques" you were thinking of.

hellofunk 11y ago
I disagree. As others have pointed out, the demand for C++ jobs is still much higher than Rust jobs, so I think my answer still stands as a way to set yourself apart when thinking of a new language to spend a few months on. Ideally, one would learn Rust and C++ both and see how they differ, and why.
- pcwalton 11y ago
  > I disagree. As others have pointed out, the demand for C++ jobs is still much higher than Rust jobs, so I think my answer still stands as a way to set yourself apart when thinking of a new language to spend a few months on. It's not going to be a particularly interesting thread if everyone who works in a language that trends higher than Go on Google chimes in to say "you should learn my language instead, because it's more popular". > Ideally, one would learn Rust and C++ both and see how they differ, and why. Aside from uninteresting language-specific details, C++ essentially doesn't teach you anything that Rust doesn't.
  - hellofunk 11y ago
    >It's not going to be a particularly interesting thread if everyone who works in a language that trends higher than Go on Google chimes in to say "you should learn my language instead, because it's more popular". I think C++ is unique in that it is really not as popular as many new languages, not as trendy and as much in the news, and not even taught as much in college programs, yet, it remains the language where so many jobs are. This gives anyone with the desire to learn it a good and marketable skill that can make it possibly easier to find work and continue making a living doing software development. That does not apply to Rust, so I think it's a fair point to make to anyone who is asking about what languages are good to learn. As for whether C++ has any techniques to teach that Rust does not, C++ is definitely a unique experience to go through and certainly gives a developer more insight into the actual machine they are working on in a way that few languages do.
    - pcwalton 11y ago
      > it remains the language where so many jobs are "The" language where so many jobs are? It's one of many. > As for whether C++ has any techniques to teach that Rust does not, C++ is definitely a unique experience to go through and certainly gives a developer more insight into the actual machine they are working on in a way that few languages do. Can you name, specifically, a way in which C++ gives you "more insight into the actual machine" compared to Rust?
      - hellofunk 11y ago
        I think that Rust simplifies some things that you must do yourself in C++, and learning how to do them is valuable. At the very least, it will help you appreciate other languages, but it can also show you areas where you get manual control over performance in ways no other language offers. And, perhaps most significantly, there are a wealth of C++ libraries out there that have no equivalent in other languages, and being able to use them is an education in itself.
        cjfont 11y ago
- nickpsecurity 11y ago
  You must say the same thing about COBOL in other threads. Demand for it remains high with people getting paid a premium in some areas for the shortage. Something like a billion lines of it out there. Microfocus is probably hiring, too. So, anyone following your argument should skip C++ and learn COBOL because COBOL is easier to learn, in widespread use, and has jobs available.
  - hellofunk 11y ago
    Interesting point. I was curious about this, and turned to Wikipedia: >In 2006 and 2012, Computerworld surveys found that over 60% of organizations used COBOL (more than C++ and Visual Basic .NET) and that for half of those, COBOL was used for the majority of their internal software. 36% of managers said they planned to migrate from COBOL, and 25% said they would like to if it was cheaper. Instead, some businesses have migrated their systems from expensive mainframes to cheaper, more modern systems, while maintaining their COBOL programs.
    - nickpsecurity 11y ago
      It was an extremely, easy-to-use language that even laypeople could write business logic in. Similar to how BASIC got so many people started. Except, Fortune 500 companies were writing all their backend stuff in COBOL on mainframes from the 60's onward. Needless to say, there's a lot of it around dependent on existing libraries, interfaces, language variants, compilers, etc. Porting it is huge risk. So, they just maintain and extend it. Main vendor even has it on Visual Studio: http://www.microfocus.com/solutions/cobol/index.aspx http://www.microfocus.com/solutions/cobol/index.aspx The job is boring, predictable, and 9-5-ish at most places. Exactly what some types of people are looking for. They figure they can play with the fun stuff at home. One person even jokingly made a web framework for it: COBOL on Cogs. So, yeah, I throw COBOL at anyone using the "use language X for users or jobs" argument to see how they react to what they're actually arguing. Interesting that you at least looked it up and didn't go into denial mode. I'm impressed. ;)
Animats 11y ago
Learning C++ means you have to learn a lot about how to debug C++, and understand exactly what's going on at the machine, OS, and debugger level. Whether this is a productive use of your life is up to you.
shin_lao 11y ago
Not really. From a carreer perspective you are 100% certain that there will be a lot of demand for C++ in 5 years (since the whole IT infrastructure is written either in C or in C++), whereas for Rust you are taking a huge bet.
- hellofunk 11y ago
  Exactly, C++ has been around for a very long time, so much runs on it, depends on it, and it is not going anywhere any time in our lifetimes, I'm certain of that. That makes it a very valuable skill. You can always study the newer languages when interested in them (I find them all fascinating), but for a deep leg into the way the industry works at its core, I think knowing C++ gets you very far. Google touts Go a lot, but so much of Google's tools are actually C++ at heart (protobufs and Chrome for example), and Apple touts Swift and has its own frameworks in Objective-C and now Swift, but under the hood, so much of their toolkits and the language of Swift itself are implemented in C++; nearly all cross-platform games we know and love for a wide variety of devices and OS are C++ -- my point is that it is a crucial language and it does not hurt to understand it.
- seren 11y ago
  Maybe my perspective is biased because I work in a very conservative industry, but a large part of C++ jobs in the next 5 years will likely be about maintenance/evolution of massive legacy C++98/C++03 applications. And you won't likely use a lot of C++14 or C++17, while on the other hand the rare Rust project might be a bit more exciting. But if you're primary motivation to learn a new language is to get a job, Cpp is surely a safer bet.
  - pcwalton 11y ago
    > a large part of C++ jobs in the next 5 years will likely be about maintenance/evolution of massive legacy C++98/C++03 applications This is exactly right, and it's been true for many years now. That your old codebase is written in C++ is a totally legitimate reason to use C++.
jbandela1 11y ago
Rust lacks higher kind types which C++ has had in the form of template templates since 1998. Rust also lacks the equivalent of variadic templates. If you want to see where that is different take a look at generic tuple manipulation in C++11 vs Rust.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- pcwalton 11y ago
  And Rust has other features that no shipping version of C++ has, like full-featured pattern matching, lifetimes, and concepts. These are features you will use hugely more often than template templates and variadic generics. But really, what's the point? The reasons you'd learn a low-level systems language are to learn how to manage memory and resources, to learn how to explicitly lay out data and to understand how to program without a runtime. Both Rust and C++ will teach you these.

wobbleblob 11y ago

The problem is that C++ is a language where the "top 150,000 most essential things to get you started with C++" is a volume that spans several book shelves. Even Bjarne Stroustrup allegedly rated his own C++ skills at maybe 7 out of 10. If you start with C++, you're committed to a multi year project, that's what it takes to advance from novice to junior level.

hellofunk 11y ago
Sorry but this is just wrong. You do not need several years to get productive in C++. Very few professional C++ developers are using every feature of the language. You could spend a year mastering template metaprogramming alone, but do you need it? Not most of the time. Interfacing with good C++ libs (another reason to learn C++) does not require metaprogramming, and many other features fall into a the same category. Saying there are 150,000 required learning points is sensationalism and just downright false.
- wobbleblob 11y ago
  Junior level is when you know all language features, and are starting to learn the ecosystem of tools and libraries. You're probably much smarter or more dedicated than me if you feel this level can be reached in a much shorter time.
  - dagw 11y ago
    Junior level is when you know all language features Wow, in that case I don't think I've ever worked with anybody who's ever managed to reach "junior level" in any language. What do you call someone with, for example, just a PhD in the relevant field, 6 or 7 years of professional programming experience and several successfully shipped products under his belt. And what do you call the guy that is obviously his junior?
    - wobbleblob 11y ago
      When someone with a PhD in the relevant field, 6 or 7 years of professional programming experience and several successfully shipped products under his belt starts learning something new, he's a junior at that new thing.

jbandela1 11y ago

I think that is a great answer. I actually see some parallels between the relationship of Rust/C++ to Scala/Java. Both basically use the backend of the established language and provide an 'improved' language on top of it. Scala uses the JVM, and Rust uses LLVM. What is interesting is that with the release of Java 8, a lot of Scala early adopters and cutting back their investment in Scala in favor of Java (for exampled LinkedIn). This is despite the fact that Scala is widely used in production, has a killer app in Spark, and allows pretty seamless use of the Java library. Now compare this to Rust. Rust also provides an 'improved' language in the same space as C++ utilizing LLVM. However, what is interesting is the nature of the improvements. The biggest feature of Rust is the memory safety. However, the memory safety is not a productivity improvement as more of a safety improvement. Unlike garbage collection where you just do not have to think about memory allocation issues, Rust forces you to think about ownership and mutability. That same exact thinking will allow you to pretty much get the same memory safety in C++ using unique_ptr and shared_ptr and const. The difference is that the compiler makes you think about it in Rust. Much like Scala inspired the adoption of features for Java, you can see C++ adopting pretty much the borrow checker as a tool - see Herb Sutter's talk at CppCon 2015 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEx5DNLWGgA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEx5DNLWGgA . As the experience with Scala shows, the adopted features of the established language do not have to perfectly match the 'improved' language to convince people to migrate back to the established language. The adopted features just have to be in the ballpark. I think the new C++ tooling will be in the ballpark in much the same way that Java 8 is in the same ballpark as Scala and remove much of the impetus for moving to Rust from C++. In addition, Rust is not as well positioned as Scala. Scala is actually deployed in production and has a killer application. Rust has no major production deployments of which I am aware and no killer application (the equivalent of Spark). In addition, while Rust can interface with C libraries, Rust cannot interface with C++ libraries unlike Scala which can interoperate with the Java standard library. Rust has some brilliant aspects just like Scala has some brilliant aspects. However, C++ (like Java) is not sitting still but has been incorporating the best ideas. In addition, when people choose a system language, they are inherently conservative because the system they are creating will typically be long lived and mission critical. If you are writing something that you hope will power your company for the next 20 years, do you want to go with a language created and driven by Mozilla with no major use in production, or with the language that powers Google, Microsoft, Apple, and Facebook? Here is what I recommend. Learn C++11/14/17. Learn Haskell to really open your mind to what is possible. Learn Rust to learn about the borrow checker. Then apply what you have learned to make yourself a better C++ programmer. Some of the best, most insightful C++ programmers I know are people who are actually well-versed in other languages, especially functional programming languages.