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Well, you seem to be precisely the target audience for the course linked in this very post: > This open-access course is directed at those who are already

Well, you seem to be precisely the target audience for the course linked in this very post: > This open-access course is directed at those who are already familiar with C > and object-oriented programming towards a proficiency level of C++ > programming.

tialaramex 3y ago
Maybe, in this context it makes lots of sense, if you know C well there are things which "just work how you expect" in C++ and so they need at most a brief refresher. I agree with Kate Gregory that this is a bad way to teach C++ from scratch. That is, if you know only say, Python or Java (or nothing) and want to learn C++, you should not begin by learning C. Kate's approach skips many of the things you can do in C++ but you shouldn't, whereas if we try to start with C you're going to see that a lot, because "they were legal in C" is why they're allowed in C++ even though they're a bad idea and then you have to unlearn things. You're maybe expecting some of that if you've years of C programming experience, but there's no need to introduce an idea on Monday only to tell students on Tuesday that it's a bad idea and they must never do that. The most insidious cases are where something is legal and correct in C but it's wrong in C++ yet it will compile and you maybe have broken software. There are some nasty type punning examples, where the pun was an idiomatic C expression which does exactly what you wanted, but in C++ that's Undefined Behaviour and all bets are off. You'd just never teach those type puns in a pure C++ course, they're never the Right Thing™.
- zedgondal 3y ago
  Can you maybe share some paid/unpaid resources to learn C++ from scratch for someone coming from Java and JS?
  - tialaramex 3y ago
    Kate has a PluralSight course which I have watched (not really to learn C++ but to see her approach) and that seemed decent to me, although of course I can't vouch for it having taught what you'd need coming from Java and JS, not least because my background is far more polyglot including Scheme and the Standard ML for example. I definitely think Bjarne Stroustrup's book about his own language isn't very good, even in later editions (which correspond to a more modern language) and so I would avoid buying that, I'm not sure it's a good defence of the language as an idea and I'm sure it isn't an effective tutorial, even if not for being out-of-date.
- butlerm 3y ago
  There is a considerable divergence of opinion on that subject. In my view, C++ isn't remotely suitable as a programming language for someone without a healthy understanding of C. Perhaps a dialect of C++ could be developed that was more of a cousin to Rust, but C++ as we know it is a C like programming language with a very large number of features added and all the ways to fail just like a C program does. There are real world advantages of course, but it is not a language for the faint of heart, not even close.
  - rramadass 3y ago
    > C++ isn't remotely suitable as a programming language for someone without a healthy understanding of C. I always look askance at folks who say they know C++ but not C. The C++ abstract machine is built over the C abstract machine and it becomes even more clearer when you go down to the binary level.
    - gpderetta 3y ago
      Depends what you mean by "understand C". As you say, understanding the C abstract machine and memory model is critical for a C++ programmer. Understanding C idioms, the standard library, best practices, and general C software architecture , is less important if not downright negative early in your formation. You will end up picking a lot up anyway if you stick to C++ long enough.
      - rramadass 3y ago
        > is less important if not downright negative "Less important" maybe but not "negative". You have to have a decent C base (not necessarily expert level with knowledge of dark corners/tricky idioms/etc.) before you start with C++. One example is being comfortable with raw pointers. I often see "Modern C++" proponents say you should never use (and by inference learn) raw pointers which is absolutely counter-productive. It is also easier to learn C++ as a "better C" in the beginning else it becomes overwhelming. I believe this is the main reason most beginning C++ programmers find the language "scary/difficult/huge/overwhelming/confusing". They are trying to learn everything at the same time which is an impossibility with a language as baroque as C++.
lnsru 3y ago
I will go through the course before Xmas. The thing is that in bare metal development even C standard library is not always being used. Recently I wrote some string processing functions for very specific parsing task. Nobody would need such crap while working with operating system.
HankB99 3y ago
That doesn't address the constraints that are typical in embedded systems such as limited memory (RAM) and the expectation that a program will run forever. There are resources oriented toward embedded C++ that address these (at least memory allocation.) On a project a couple years ago I was pushing to use C++ instead of C, if only as a "C compiled using the C++ compiler" for better type checking. I could not convince the project lead, who's technical depth far exceeded mine, that the C++ compiler was as likely as the C compiler to produce correct translations.
- gosub100 3y ago
  I wouldn't worry about the compiler producing correct code, I would worry about the heap eventually fragmenting enough that an allocation fails (perhaps thousands of hours after the program launches). I know C++ offers the ability to supply your own allocator, but it's not for the faint of heart.

tialaramex 3y ago

Maybe, in this context it makes lots of sense, if you know C well there are things which "just work how you expect" in C++ and so they need at most a brief refresher. I agree with Kate Gregory that this is a bad way to teach C++ from scratch. That is, if you know only say, Python or Java (or nothing) and want to learn C++, you should not begin by learning C. Kate's approach skips many of the things you can do in C++ but you shouldn't, whereas if we try to start with C you're going to see that a lot, because "they were legal in C" is why they're allowed in C++ even though they're a bad idea and then you have to unlearn things. You're maybe expecting some of that if you've years of C programming experience, but there's no need to introduce an idea on Monday only to tell students on Tuesday that it's a bad idea and they must never do that. The most insidious cases are where something is legal and correct in C but it's wrong in C++ yet it will compile and you maybe have broken software. There are some nasty type punning examples, where the pun was an idiomatic C expression which does exactly what you wanted, but in C++ that's Undefined Behaviour and all bets are off. You'd just never teach those type puns in a pure C++ course, they're never the Right Thing™.

zedgondal 3y ago
Can you maybe share some paid/unpaid resources to learn C++ from scratch for someone coming from Java and JS?
- tialaramex 3y ago
  Kate has a PluralSight course which I have watched (not really to learn C++ but to see her approach) and that seemed decent to me, although of course I can't vouch for it having taught what you'd need coming from Java and JS, not least because my background is far more polyglot including Scheme and the Standard ML for example. I definitely think Bjarne Stroustrup's book about his own language isn't very good, even in later editions (which correspond to a more modern language) and so I would avoid buying that, I'm not sure it's a good defence of the language as an idea and I'm sure it isn't an effective tutorial, even if not for being out-of-date.
butlerm 3y ago
There is a considerable divergence of opinion on that subject. In my view, C++ isn't remotely suitable as a programming language for someone without a healthy understanding of C. Perhaps a dialect of C++ could be developed that was more of a cousin to Rust, but C++ as we know it is a C like programming language with a very large number of features added and all the ways to fail just like a C program does. There are real world advantages of course, but it is not a language for the faint of heart, not even close.
- rramadass 3y ago
  > C++ isn't remotely suitable as a programming language for someone without a healthy understanding of C. I always look askance at folks who say they know C++ but not C. The C++ abstract machine is built over the C abstract machine and it becomes even more clearer when you go down to the binary level.
  - gpderetta 3y ago
    Depends what you mean by "understand C". As you say, understanding the C abstract machine and memory model is critical for a C++ programmer. Understanding C idioms, the standard library, best practices, and general C software architecture , is less important if not downright negative early in your formation. You will end up picking a lot up anyway if you stick to C++ long enough.
    - rramadass 3y ago
      > is less important if not downright negative "Less important" maybe but not "negative". You have to have a decent C base (not necessarily expert level with knowledge of dark corners/tricky idioms/etc.) before you start with C++. One example is being comfortable with raw pointers. I often see "Modern C++" proponents say you should never use (and by inference learn) raw pointers which is absolutely counter-productive. It is also easier to learn C++ as a "better C" in the beginning else it becomes overwhelming. I believe this is the main reason most beginning C++ programmers find the language "scary/difficult/huge/overwhelming/confusing". They are trying to learn everything at the same time which is an impossibility with a language as baroque as C++.

lnsru 3y ago

I will go through the course before Xmas. The thing is that in bare metal development even C standard library is not always being used. Recently I wrote some string processing functions for very specific parsing task. Nobody would need such crap while working with operating system.

HankB99 3y ago

That doesn't address the constraints that are typical in embedded systems such as limited memory (RAM) and the expectation that a program will run forever. There are resources oriented toward embedded C++ that address these (at least memory allocation.) On a project a couple years ago I was pushing to use C++ instead of C, if only as a "C compiled using the C++ compiler" for better type checking. I could not convince the project lead, who's technical depth far exceeded mine, that the C++ compiler was as likely as the C compiler to produce correct translations.

gosub100 3y ago
I wouldn't worry about the compiler producing correct code, I would worry about the heap eventually fragmenting enough that an allocation fails (perhaps thousands of hours after the program launches). I know C++ offers the ability to supply your own allocator, but it's not for the faint of heart.