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Learning C++

Name: Anonymous 2009-12-12 16:16

OK guys I need to learn this shit, for mathematical modelling, as I'm hoping for a career in quantative finance.

So what's a good place to start (textbooks, websites, etc)? I should note that I'm pretty inexperienced with programming in general. 

Any other general protips?

Name: Anonymous 2009-12-12 16:19

quantative finance
I would suggest you learn any of these instead of C++: Lisp, O'Caml, Haskell, Scheme.
Learning C should also benefit you in the long run.

Name: Anonymous 2009-12-12 16:23

>>2
C++ is pretty standard in the industry, and for interview questions, so I need to learn it.

I'm also curious:

How much exposure to C++ does one get doing a typical computer science bachelor's? I want to know how far I am behind the CS code monkeys.

Name: Anonymous 2009-12-12 16:24

>>2
While I agree that he should avoid C++, you would think that Quantitative Finance would have something equivalent to R

Name: Anonymous 2009-12-12 16:25

Accelerated C++ by Andrew Koenig is as good as a book about shit can be.

Name: Anonymous 2009-12-12 16:29

How much exposure to C++ does one get doing a typical computer science bachelor's?
I didn't take CS, but given how they always whine about Java, you could take a guess at None to very little. There is virtually no good reason to use C++ in this day and age anyway.

Name: Anonymous 2009-12-12 16:34

>>6
There is virtually no good reason to use C++ in this day and age anyway.

Why are so many games made with C++ then?

Name: Anonymous 2009-12-12 16:44

>>7
C++ retains most of the low/mid-level language benefits of C, and adds a clusterfuck of high-level features. Games need speed, thus low-level features may be needed, however games are fairly complex and benefit much from a high-level design aproach. C++ is one such language which retains these requirements, and at the same time it's a popular language which was thought to many people in schools/universities around that time, which led it to become popular in the industry. There are many better choices of languages for programming games, but most of them are not popular languages.

I don't see any reason why OP should learn C++, except maybe for bonus points on his resume and being able to interoperate/work on other people's code.

Name: Anonymous 2009-12-12 16:44

>>7
please learn what the word 'virtually' means in this context, thank you

Name: Anonymous 2009-12-12 17:31

>>7
Its true that a lot of games are written in C++. It turns out that just about every game I play is written in pure C. (I can tell by the SDKs and by looking at the symbol tables.)

Name: Anonymous 2009-12-12 18:42

>>10
Does Carmack write his new games in C++? He's the only programmer I consider knowledgeable about programming and development in his industry.

Name: Anonymous 2009-12-12 20:09

If the finance industry uses sepples, no wonder the whole world's economy crashed.

Name: Anonymous 2009-12-12 21:31

>>12
Cool deduction bro.

Name: Anonymous 2009-12-13 2:20

>>11
Partially. IIRC Q3 was written in a mix of C (the graphical stuff) and C++ (everything else). Actually it's quite modular, and the different parts don't really resemble eachother at all...

Name: Anonymous 2009-12-13 2:37

>>3
How much exposure to C++ does one get doing a typical computer science bachelor's? I want to know how far I am behind the CS code monkeys.
Depends on the school. Some are all C++, some are none, and some do C then C++. So you've got the advantage over the all C++ folks, but some other people come out practically clean.

Name: Anonymous 2009-12-13 2:38

>I didn't take CS, but given how they always whine about Java, you could take a guess at None to very little. There is virtually no good reason to use C++ in this day and age anyway.
Lol, no. They whine about Java but love C++. C's OK, and VB's a joke.

Name: Anonymous 2009-12-13 7:50

>>11
Yeah coz those guys are EPIC MEGAGAMES ARE OBVIOUSLY COMPLETE RETARDS

Name: Anonymous 2009-12-13 10:48

>>14
This is completely false. Q3 was pure C (just grab the source code) and I don't know what you mean by «and the different parts don't really resemble eachother at all». The entire code was written by him except the shitty, buggy bot AI.

On Doom 3 they moved everything to C++ and Carmack wrote just the renderer - the rest of the engine became absolute shit, no surprises here (it went from a proper client/server, fully asynchronous, intra-extraexpolating framerate-independent engine to a shitty fixed ticrate engine which a networking model best described as nonexistent (but at least it sorts of works sometimes).

Name: Anonymous 2009-12-13 13:05

>>18
Maybe Carmack and Torvalds should get together and have a big ol'e steaming hot coding session.

Name: Anonymous 2009-12-13 13:17

>>18
why would you sage a completely valid discussion point? i find it quite arrogant.

Name: Anonymous 2009-12-13 13:23

>>20
Not saging is considered rude around these parts. You should only age when you're contributing something very important to the thread and the thread is not a crappy one.

Name: Anonymous 2009-12-13 13:43

>>21
you've assumed too much about the sage etiquette. your heuristics are inaccurate.

Name: Anonymous 2009-12-13 15:04

>>13
You know it's true.

Name: Anonymous 2009-12-13 15:15

>>7
Why are so many games made with C++ then?
The truth? People fell for the hype behind C++, as C was getting unwieldy for dependable, scalable software. C++ seemed like the answer. When everyone knew C, they wrote C in C++, which is just about the only way C++ offers any benefits whatsoever. However, C++ offered only marginal improvements and still relies very heavily on convention to protect against horrible gotchas, which is really very sad. In any case, it spackled over a gaping hole, and nothing has really stepped up since.

It's like asking, "Why are so many people eating McDonald's all the time if it is so shitty?" Because, you see, shittiness (or lack thereof) and popularity really have no common cause. Things can be shitty and popular due to momentum leftover from a time when people had to make compromises, and like most engineering tasks, it is very difficult and expensive to fix, so you live with shit day in and day out.

Name: Anonymous 2009-12-13 19:24

>>22
You haven't assumed enough about the sage etiquette. Your heuristics are inaccurate.

Name: Anonymous 2009-12-13 19:28

>>24
Even in this age with all our understanding and new tools, people are still choosing to use C++. To me, that sounds like C++ has real merits - development teams choose C++ over other languages.

Name: Anonymous 2009-12-13 20:12

>>26
Yep. Expect Sepplesix to be a bit better, too. I'm so excited for it.

Name: Anonymous 2009-12-14 12:12

>>17
I didn't want to imply everyone else sucks. He's the only guy in the gaming industry whose code I've seen. I've only heard horror stories from other shops like Crytek or Valve and they're bot C++ shops from what I heard.

Name: Anonymous 2009-12-14 13:28

>>26
Even in this age with all our understanding and new tools, people are still choosing to use Fortran. To me, that sounds like Fortran has real merits - development teams choose Fortran over other languages.

Even in this age with all our understanding and new tools, people are still choosing to use Cobol. To me, that sounds like Cobol has real merits - development teams choose Cobol over other languages.

Even in this age with all our understanding and new tools, people are still choosing to use PHP. To me, that sounds like PHP has real merits - development teams choose PHP over other languages.

etc,etc...

Name: Anonymous 2009-12-14 14:06

>>29
EXPERT PHP TROLL

Name: Anonymous 2009-12-14 14:22

>>26
Sepples has inertia, not merits.

Name: Anonymous 2009-12-14 14:28

>>26
Expert non sequitur, champ. You actually can deduce nothing about the relative merit of the language from the fact that people use it. Look at Bjarne's own words as to why sepples came about. It did fill a real need. But from day one it was a compromise. And that's also why it is still used. It's a compromise. It's not that C++ is a good language. It's that it is the only language that remains after a series of shitty compromises, like, "What language can we expect people to know?" Increasingly in games, for example, people build or use scripting languages on top of their engines. Why would they do this, if C++ is so great? --Even this contains a mistake. The language has no merit in comparison with other languages at any particular task. But companies do not solve particular tasks. People do not solve particular tasks. They solve a big problem, meaning, they compromise to find the solution that is a fit to all the tasks. C++ very unfortunately often remains after the series of compromises. Sun knows it is unfortunate; hence, Java. Microsoft knows it is unfortunately; hence, C#. Most people on /prog/ know it is unfortunate. Aside from Bjarne, whose devotion to C++ I can forgive, no one else has any excuse for applauding the language.

Sepplesox looks to make some minor improvements, but I don't see much of the C++ FQA addressed in it, so it will still suck, just marginally less. Now, you could say, "But what else can be used in its place?" In some cases, just about anything, but in others, nothing.

Its unique position does not give it any additional value, however. Back in the day, there was a standard meter in Paris. Was it the best meter? It was just a fucking meter.

Name: Anonymous 2009-12-14 22:26

>>32
Increasingly in games, for example, people build or use scripting languages on top of their engines. Why would they do this, if C++ is so great?
( ≖‿≖)

Name: Anonymous 2009-12-15 2:10

>>18
I stand corrected. This actually makes me feel a lot better about going pure C for my own toy projects. I think writing a very simple 3D engine in C is not an unreasonable undertaking; it's probably a good idea just to get comfortable with the language.

Name: Anonymous 2009-12-15 4:46

>>18
I'm completely astounded; development team that picks up an entirely new language has issues adjusting to it. Amazing.

Name: Anonymous 2010-11-25 12:06

Name: Anonymous 2010-11-25 15:39

Name: Anonymous 2010-12-24 0:56


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