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Did you see yesterday's article about the White House Office of the National Cyber Director (ONCD) advising developers to dump C, C++, and other languages with

by hilux 3y ago

Did you see yesterday's article about the White House Office of the National Cyber Director (ONCD) advising developers to dump C, C++, and other languages with memory-safety issues?

sk11001 3y ago
Yes, and at the same time I’m seeing ads for jobs that pay more than double what I make that require C++.
mkipper 3y ago
I still think knowing C++ is pretty valuable to someone's career (at least over the next 10 - 15 years) if they're looking to work in fields that traditionally use C++ but might be transitioning away from it. The obvious comparison is Rust. There are way more C++ jobs out there than Rust jobs. And even if I'm hiring for a team developing something in Rust, I'd generally prefer candidates with similar C++ experience and a basic understanding of Rust over candidates with a strong knowledge of Rust and no domain experience. Modern C++ and Rust aren't _that_ dissimilar, and a lot of ideas and techniques carry over from C++ to Rust. Even if the DoD recommends that contractors stop using C++ and tech / finance are moving away from it, I'd say we're still years away from the point where Rust catches up to C++ in terms of job opportunities. If your main goal is employment in a certain industry, you'll probably have an easier time getting your foot in the door with C++ than Rust. Both paths are viable but the Rust path would be much harder IMO.
avgcorrection 3y ago
We’re still in for another 20 years of hardcore veteran Cxx programmers insisting that either the memory safety issue is overblown or just a theoretical issue if you are experienced enough/use a new enough edition of the language.
- bluGill 3y ago
  The C++ committee is looking hard at how to make C++ memory safe. If you use modern C++ you are already reasonably memory safe - the trick is how do we force developers to not access raw memory (no new/malloc, use vector not arrays...). There are some things that seem like they will come soon. Of course if you really need that non-memory safe stuff - which all your existing code does - then you can't take advantage of it. However you can migrate your C++ to modern C++ and add those features to your code. This is probably easier than migrating to something like Rust (Rust cannot work with C++ unless you stick with the C subset from what I can tell) since you can work in small chunks at a time in at least some situations.

by hilux 3y ago

Did you see yesterday's article about the White House Office of the National Cyber Director (ONCD) advising developers to dump C, C++, and other languages with memory-safety issues?

sk11001 3y ago

Yes, and at the same time I’m seeing ads for jobs that pay more than double what I make that require C++.

mkipper 3y ago

I still think knowing C++ is pretty valuable to someone's career (at least over the next 10 - 15 years) if they're looking to work in fields that traditionally use C++ but might be transitioning away from it. The obvious comparison is Rust. There are way more C++ jobs out there than Rust jobs. And even if I'm hiring for a team developing something in Rust, I'd generally prefer candidates with similar C++ experience and a basic understanding of Rust over candidates with a strong knowledge of Rust and no domain experience. Modern C++ and Rust aren't _that_ dissimilar, and a lot of ideas and techniques carry over from C++ to Rust. Even if the DoD recommends that contractors stop using C++ and tech / finance are moving away from it, I'd say we're still years away from the point where Rust catches up to C++ in terms of job opportunities. If your main goal is employment in a certain industry, you'll probably have an easier time getting your foot in the door with C++ than Rust. Both paths are viable but the Rust path would be much harder IMO.

avgcorrection 3y ago

We’re still in for another 20 years of hardcore veteran Cxx programmers insisting that either the memory safety issue is overblown or just a theoretical issue if you are experienced enough/use a new enough edition of the language.

bluGill 3y ago
The C++ committee is looking hard at how to make C++ memory safe. If you use modern C++ you are already reasonably memory safe - the trick is how do we force developers to not access raw memory (no new/malloc, use vector not arrays...). There are some things that seem like they will come soon. Of course if you really need that non-memory safe stuff - which all your existing code does - then you can't take advantage of it. However you can migrate your C++ to modern C++ and add those features to your code. This is probably easier than migrating to something like Rust (Rust cannot work with C++ unless you stick with the C subset from what I can tell) since you can work in small chunks at a time in at least some situations.