Why should a programmer move his code from C to C++? What advantages would he have using C++ as a generic programming language?
Bjarne: You seem to assume that code first was written in C and that the programmer started out as a C programmer. For many—probably most—C++ programs and C++ programmers, that has not been the case for quite a while. Unfortunately, the “C first” approach lingers in many curricula, but it is no longer something to take for granted.
Someone might switch from C to C++ because they found C++’s support for the styles of programming usually done with C is better than C’s. The C++ type checking is stricter (you can’t forget to declare a function or its argument types) and there is type-safe notational support for many common operations, such as object creation (including initialization) and constants. I have seen people do that and be very happy with the problems they left behind. Usually, that’s done in combination with the adoption of some C++ libraries that may or may not be considered object-oriented, such as the standard vector, a GUI library, or some application-specific library.
Just using a simple user-defined type, such as vector, string, or complex, does not require a paradigm shift. People can—if they so choose—use those just like the built-in types. Is someone using std::vector “using OO”? I would say no. Is someone using a C++ GUI without actually adding new functionality “using OO”? I’m inclined to say yes, because their use typically requires the users to understand and use inheritance.
Using C++ as “a generic-programming programming language” gives you the standard containers and algorithms right out of box (as part of the standard library). That is major leverage in many applications and a major step up in abstraction from C. Beyond that, people can start to benefit from libraries, such as Boost, and start to appreciate some of the functional programming techniques inherent in generic programming. However, I think the question is slightly misleading. I don’t want to represent C++ as “an OO language” or “a GP language”; rather, it is a language supporting:
• C-style programming
• Data abstraction
• Object-oriented programming
• Generic programming
Crucially, it supports programming styles that combines those (“multiparadigm programming” if you must) and does so with a bias toward systems programming.
Source of Information : Oreilly - Masterminds of Programming
Bjarne: You seem to assume that code first was written in C and that the programmer started out as a C programmer. For many—probably most—C++ programs and C++ programmers, that has not been the case for quite a while. Unfortunately, the “C first” approach lingers in many curricula, but it is no longer something to take for granted.
Someone might switch from C to C++ because they found C++’s support for the styles of programming usually done with C is better than C’s. The C++ type checking is stricter (you can’t forget to declare a function or its argument types) and there is type-safe notational support for many common operations, such as object creation (including initialization) and constants. I have seen people do that and be very happy with the problems they left behind. Usually, that’s done in combination with the adoption of some C++ libraries that may or may not be considered object-oriented, such as the standard vector, a GUI library, or some application-specific library.
Just using a simple user-defined type, such as vector, string, or complex, does not require a paradigm shift. People can—if they so choose—use those just like the built-in types. Is someone using std::vector “using OO”? I would say no. Is someone using a C++ GUI without actually adding new functionality “using OO”? I’m inclined to say yes, because their use typically requires the users to understand and use inheritance.
Using C++ as “a generic-programming programming language” gives you the standard containers and algorithms right out of box (as part of the standard library). That is major leverage in many applications and a major step up in abstraction from C. Beyond that, people can start to benefit from libraries, such as Boost, and start to appreciate some of the functional programming techniques inherent in generic programming. However, I think the question is slightly misleading. I don’t want to represent C++ as “an OO language” or “a GP language”; rather, it is a language supporting:
• C-style programming
• Data abstraction
• Object-oriented programming
• Generic programming
Crucially, it supports programming styles that combines those (“multiparadigm programming” if you must) and does so with a bias toward systems programming.
Source of Information : Oreilly - Masterminds of Programming
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