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IMO, Code golf is an excellent metric. Only someone who masters a language and knows its weird edge cases and obscure syntax can make sense of the answers, or a
by ksk 10y ago
IMO, Code golf is an excellent metric. Only someone who masters a language and knows its weird edge cases and obscure syntax can make sense of the answers, or attempt to present an answer themselves. If writing code with minimal bugs is your goal, then you don't need to master the language at all. So, I don't even know what we're arguing about. Looks like we agree on most things. So lemme ask you, can you name books (or courses) that teach C++, and devote a significant chunk (or any) of the material to cover such arcane syntax topics? Yes, C++ is complex, because the underlying hardware is complex - and you want to get as close to the hardware as possible. After all, you're basically signing up to repair and service the car yourself, versus bringing it in at the dealership.
- seanwilson 10y ago> IMO, Code golf is an excellent metric. Only someone who masters a language and knows its weird edge cases and obscure syntax can make sense of the answers, or attempt to present an answer themselves. To me, mastering a language is knowing how to use it in a way to solve a problem in the fastest development time with minimal bugs and maintainable code which does not match up with code golf. C++ gives you lots of ways to introduce weird bugs which isn't something code golf demonstrates. > So lemme ask you, can you name books (or courses) that teach C++, and devote a significant chunk (or any) of the material to cover such arcane syntax topics? The C++ Programming Language book and Effective Modern C++ are good and they're full of "don't do this or something bad will happen!" parts. I'm not really concerned about a few arcane syntax problems but I am concerned that C++ has a lot of undefined behaviour that lets you shoot yourself in the foot in a way that other languages avoid.