4 ms·

Why would mastering modern C++ be a waste of time?

angersock 10y ago
Because, for better or for worse, every second spent mastering a language is time not spent delivering value. EDIT: How many dollars have you been paid for template metaprogramming? How many contracts have you won because you used the proper const-correctness? Folks, nobody gives two shits about how pretty your CPP (or any code for that matter!) is if it isn't solving their problem right now. More value has been created by decent developers using the boring language features they know well than by people becoming master craftsman.
- mikeash 10y ago
  If it helps you deliver value faster afterwards then it's a win. Alice starts cutting down a tree with a dull saw, Bob takes the time to sharpen the saw before he starts cutting. It's not sensible to criticize Bob on the basis that his sharpening time is time not spent delivering value.
  - angersock 10y ago
    There is rarely an afterwards in any meaningful sense: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superiority_%28short_story%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superiority_%28short_story%29 If you want to see your position taken to the extreme, go look at the JS ecosystem right now. Plenty Bob's sharpening their axes to the detriment of both their projects and the community as a whole. As engineers and programmers we like to play with tools and pursue language purity and whatnot--but we cannot fall into the trap of conflating that with sound business practice.
    - mikeash 10y ago
      Pretty much any idea becomes stupid when taken to an extreme. If you want to see your position taken to the extreme, go look at 90% of programmers out there, who spend as little time as possible sharpening their saw and as much time as possible churning out awful, nearly worthless code.
      - angersock 10y ago
        Quantity has a quality all its own, my friend. Wordpress is garbage, but has a fairly secure niche that is only recently even getting attention from competitors. Here on HN everyone is a PLT prodigy who would never deign to admit that they would ever be beaten by the 90% of programmers--but in the real world, well, they make shit happen. Some problems are solved better by throwing warm bodies with lukewarm IQs than by trying to get the perfect language lawyer. Have some humility.
        mikeash 10y ago
        They make shit happen, until it finally collapses in on itself and the people paying the bills realize they've been paying for actual shit, then they bring in a programmer with a sharp saw to clean up the mess. Happens constantly.
        angersock 10y ago
        And that shit paid the bills for the eventual cleanup, while waiting on a better solution wouldn't have. Moreover, it's usually pretty obvious how to fix that kind of mess whereas a more clever/advanced solution can be completely unmaintainable.
- candiodari 10y ago
  Thing is, there's a number of job types in IT. There's the frontend jobs that everyone can "easily" get into (but that means they aren't good, unfortunately the frontend devs market definitely suffers from lemon law syndrome). C++ backend jobs have a number of great properties: devs are scarce, because of the difficulty interviews will definitely reveal good vs bad, it's an absolute necessity to have these devs, and the products they produce outperform. Ergo mucho dinero. And NOBODY goes to a C++ dev with a photoshop file asking for things to be moved over a few pixels. Nobody. That, by itself ... And to top it all off : because C++ is a mature language the tooling is actually passable to good. In frontend, VSCode+typescript is the only thing I know of that has passable tooling. Passable meaning that editing code is good to well done. Debugging, performance measurement, deployment, monitoring, ... very much not solved. And there's a lot of things that are adding insult to injury. Performance programming also has the advantage that there's problems that just can't be solved by anything that's more than 5% or so removed from optimal performance. And those are really interesting problems : from machine learning to gaming. When I say "can't" I don't literally mean can't, just that a company like Google or Facebook simply can't risk the other one using C++ and not using C++ themselves, due to the risk that it results in the other one getting a 50% faster stack, as they would fear that would be an overriding advantage (and advantage big enough that nothing else matters. Working with a double as fast stack, a mediocre data scientist can outperform a good one, resulting in more advancement, resulting in first-to-market, resulting in). And this applied not just to machine learning, but it applied to games, to databases, to OS, to ... C++ has conquered the machine learning stack, and it's never letting go. The point is that this is not C++'s first rodeo so to speak. C++ has conquered many markets that will never go back to non-C++. And those are exactly the ones you want to work in. But yes, it's pretty serious in the learning curve. And a subtle language results in subtle problems. That generates a ton of hate. One last advantage though : if you're an expert in C++, you're not far removed from being an expert in a lot of different (imperative) languages. C++ has options to do anything, so learning a new language is figuring out how some new language maps onto C++, and getting past the frustration that lots of things just aren't possible in the new language.
  - stevedonovan 10y ago
    My (limited) experience with Rust is that it's necessary to unlearn a lot of C++ habits. E.g. forgetting that Rust likes to _move_ and C++ likes to _copy_

Because, for better or for worse, every second spent mastering a language is time not spent delivering value. EDIT: How many dollars have you been paid for template metaprogramming? How many contracts have you won because you used the proper const-correctness? Folks, nobody gives two shits about how pretty your CPP (or any code for that matter!) is if it isn't solving their problem right now. More value has been created by decent developers using the boring language features they know well than by people becoming master craftsman.

mikeash 10y ago
If it helps you deliver value faster afterwards then it's a win. Alice starts cutting down a tree with a dull saw, Bob takes the time to sharpen the saw before he starts cutting. It's not sensible to criticize Bob on the basis that his sharpening time is time not spent delivering value.
- angersock 10y ago
  There is rarely an afterwards in any meaningful sense: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superiority_%28short_story%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superiority_%28short_story%29 If you want to see your position taken to the extreme, go look at the JS ecosystem right now. Plenty Bob's sharpening their axes to the detriment of both their projects and the community as a whole. As engineers and programmers we like to play with tools and pursue language purity and whatnot--but we cannot fall into the trap of conflating that with sound business practice.
  - mikeash 10y ago
    Pretty much any idea becomes stupid when taken to an extreme. If you want to see your position taken to the extreme, go look at 90% of programmers out there, who spend as little time as possible sharpening their saw and as much time as possible churning out awful, nearly worthless code.
    - angersock 10y ago
      Quantity has a quality all its own, my friend. Wordpress is garbage, but has a fairly secure niche that is only recently even getting attention from competitors. Here on HN everyone is a PLT prodigy who would never deign to admit that they would ever be beaten by the 90% of programmers--but in the real world, well, they make shit happen. Some problems are solved better by throwing warm bodies with lukewarm IQs than by trying to get the perfect language lawyer. Have some humility.
      - mikeash 10y ago
        They make shit happen, until it finally collapses in on itself and the people paying the bills realize they've been paying for actual shit, then they bring in a programmer with a sharp saw to clean up the mess. Happens constantly.
        angersock 10y ago
        And that shit paid the bills for the eventual cleanup, while waiting on a better solution wouldn't have. Moreover, it's usually pretty obvious how to fix that kind of mess whereas a more clever/advanced solution can be completely unmaintainable.
candiodari 10y ago
Thing is, there's a number of job types in IT. There's the frontend jobs that everyone can "easily" get into (but that means they aren't good, unfortunately the frontend devs market definitely suffers from lemon law syndrome). C++ backend jobs have a number of great properties: devs are scarce, because of the difficulty interviews will definitely reveal good vs bad, it's an absolute necessity to have these devs, and the products they produce outperform. Ergo mucho dinero. And NOBODY goes to a C++ dev with a photoshop file asking for things to be moved over a few pixels. Nobody. That, by itself ... And to top it all off : because C++ is a mature language the tooling is actually passable to good. In frontend, VSCode+typescript is the only thing I know of that has passable tooling. Passable meaning that editing code is good to well done. Debugging, performance measurement, deployment, monitoring, ... very much not solved. And there's a lot of things that are adding insult to injury. Performance programming also has the advantage that there's problems that just can't be solved by anything that's more than 5% or so removed from optimal performance. And those are really interesting problems : from machine learning to gaming. When I say "can't" I don't literally mean can't, just that a company like Google or Facebook simply can't risk the other one using C++ and not using C++ themselves, due to the risk that it results in the other one getting a 50% faster stack, as they would fear that would be an overriding advantage (and advantage big enough that nothing else matters. Working with a double as fast stack, a mediocre data scientist can outperform a good one, resulting in more advancement, resulting in first-to-market, resulting in). And this applied not just to machine learning, but it applied to games, to databases, to OS, to ... C++ has conquered the machine learning stack, and it's never letting go. The point is that this is not C++'s first rodeo so to speak. C++ has conquered many markets that will never go back to non-C++. And those are exactly the ones you want to work in. But yes, it's pretty serious in the learning curve. And a subtle language results in subtle problems. That generates a ton of hate. One last advantage though : if you're an expert in C++, you're not far removed from being an expert in a lot of different (imperative) languages. C++ has options to do anything, so learning a new language is figuring out how some new language maps onto C++, and getting past the frustration that lots of things just aren't possible in the new language.
- stevedonovan 10y ago
  My (limited) experience with Rust is that it's necessary to unlearn a lot of C++ habits. E.g. forgetting that Rust likes to _move_ and C++ likes to _copy_