versions

Hi,

There are many versions of C and C++ built by many different companies.
So, which version :

1. more easier to learn
2. more easier to remember
3. more easier to debug
4. helps me find errors fast and professionally
5. more portable
6. has the biggest community
7. has more tutorials widely available
8. has it’s source code all over the internet
9. and so on

If C++ is an extension of C then why isn’t it called the new version of C instead of having a different name ?
And, why isn’t it called C+ instead of C++ ?
Was there ever a C+ ?
Who created the C++ and why couldn’t they give a different name instead of copying the name from C ?
Anything else I should know ?

 

If you want to use oops concepts, its c++ else its c

 

Well, to begin with, you HAVE to learn C to learn C++.

As for their being different versions of C, C is pretty much the same language no matter what your developing for/on/with, only with slight modifications between compilers. For the most part, a program written with one companies compiler will work just fine on another compiler. What you were probably thinking about was different compilers

Assuming your looking to develop on the windows platform I would recommend going with Lcc-win32, as it provides an all in one system for both writing code, compiling code, and debugging code. It also takes a lot of the burdens of C coding away (like figuring out library dependancies) and provides many tools visualising your project (like a code explorer and a resource editor.) Later on if you want to get into some serious coding, you might look into Microsofts Visual C++, or even moving to a unix based platform.

If your looking to develop C under *.IX you might want to try developing in another platform first.

Anyway,
Good luck

 

I've read some books that claim you can start right from CPP. (may be the Sams 21 days to CPP?)

 

It is called C++ because one on the operators in the C language is ++, increment variable by 1. So C++ is C incremented by one.

Personally I really love C. However C++ is mainly object orientated C and some extra stuff.

Object orientated languages are really good because you create your code in logical modules, known as classes. A class is a group of functions and data that is grouped in a small functional object. So you could program an object called "Car". In the object you have car related stuff only like a startcar function, stopcar function, steer car function... And data like headlightson, enginerunning, registrationnumber.

This is the cool part, now you have a Car class you create it like any other variable. So in other parts of your code you can use Car by defining it like a variable. You can crate arrays of Cars. And the programming was only done once and is the same for all instances.

There's lots of other stuff too, but thats a basic overview.

I recommend Microsoft C++, you can get it for £80 from www.ebuyer.com, probably not the most recent version though. It's really good at steping through code and monitoring variables while debugging.

 

If you are asking all these questions, may be you should try something lighter - say Java. C++ is a hard-core language that is great and allows you to do just about anything you want, but isn't fogiving at all - you can spend days and months looking for that single byte that makes your program core dump in the middle of the binary code you have no idea about.

Here's a quote from http://abbreviations.virtualsplat.com:

C++ creator Bjarne Stroustrup called his new language "C with Classes" and then "new C". Because of which the original C began to be called "old C" which was considered insulting to the C community. At this time Rick Mascitti suggested the name C++ as a successor to C. In C the '++' operator increments the value of the variable it is appended to, thus C++ would increment the value of C.

Here's another one, which I find kinda funny, from http://www.faqs.org:

Designed by Bjarne Stroustrup of AT&T Bell Labs as a successor to C. Now one of the languages of choice, although many hackers still grumble that it is the successor to either Algol 68 or Ada (depending on generation), and a prime example of second-system effect. Almost anything that can be done in any language can be done in C++, but it requires a language lawyer to know what is and what is not legal-- the design is almost too large to hold in even hackers' heads. Much of the cruft results from C++'s attempt to be backward compatible with C. Stroustrup himself has said in his retrospective book "The Design and Evolution of C++" (p. 207), "Within C++, there is a much smaller and cleaner language struggling to get out." [Many hackers would now add "Yes, and it's called Java" --ESR]

As for compiler, you get a free one with Linux. GCC is a good and standard-compliant language. You will also have to find a good IDE to work with it (there are a few choices). If you are more of a Windows person, check out MS' compiler/IDE.

J.D.

 

in response to the versions part of the question, just make sure that the copy (from whatever company) is ansi-compliant.