Author Topic: I'm a C++ programmer...  (Read 2896 times)

Perspective

  • badfish
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I'm a C++ programmer...
« on: December 20, 2013, 10:14:11 AM »
I honestly never thought I'd be a C++ programmer. Java had become so popular and the majority of my schooling and experience has been in java. The only real need I see for C++ is high  performance applications where every millisecond counts. Well, after graduation the best job I found was building a high performance data platform where every millisecond counts! I think the only reason I felt comfortable jumping into a C++ gig was because of all the graphics programming I had done as a hobby back in the cprog days.

Just goes to show how important it is to keep as many doors open as possible when it comes to technology. Even though one thing may dominate now you never know what employers may want in the future. Having a breadth of skills really gives you options. Sure having focused expertise is valuable, but you never know if, when, and where you'll find a job to suit those expertise.

Mike

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Re: I'm a C++ programmer...
« Reply #1 on: December 20, 2013, 10:41:23 AM »
I really do think that being a solid programmer is more about knowing the concepts, being able to implement them in several different types of languages, and the soft skills than having a huge in depth knowledge of a particular language.  Sure, that in depth knowledge is useful in small niches but for general employability breadth seems way more important.  On the Big Think channel on youtube they had interviews with some language creators and asked them how many languages a programmer should know and it was interesting to see that at least 5 was a common thread.

Oh, and I'm sorry to hear you have to write C++ ;)

Perspective

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Re: I'm a C++ programmer...
« Reply #2 on: December 20, 2013, 01:45:43 PM »
Yes, absolutely the concepts are the most important thing. But when you jump into a huge existing code base, familiarity with the language is really important. I couldn't imagine trying to work on this project if I had come from a purely java background with no C++ knowledge.

And I actually quite like C++ :) pointers make the world go 'round.

JaWiB

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Re: I'm a C++ programmer...
« Reply #3 on: December 20, 2013, 04:21:01 PM »
Despite the fact that I rarely use C++ now, I still think of it as my native language. It feels way more comfortable to write a little C++ console program to parse data files or whatever than to write the same thing in another language, even if it takes more effort to do it  :)