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- <ul>
- <li><a href="#org444df9c">1. An Affair with C++</a>
- <ul>
- <li><a href="#orgaec946e">1.1. Falling in love</a></li>
- <li><a href="#orga91db2f">1.2. The trauma</a></li>
- <li><a href="#org37ebed7">1.3. Aftermath</a></li>
- </ul>
- </li>
- </ul>
- </div>
- </div>
- <div id="outline-container-org444df9c" class="outline-2">
- <h2 id="org444df9c"><span class="section-number-2">1</span> An Affair with C++</h2>
- <div class="outline-text-2" id="text-1">
- </div>
- <div id="outline-container-orgaec946e" class="outline-3">
- <h3 id="orgaec946e"><span class="section-number-3">1.1</span> Falling in love</h3>
- <div class="outline-text-3" id="text-1-1">
- <p>
- It was in college, when I was studying computer science that I first
- learnt C++ as part of the curriculum. Prior to C++, I had studied how to
- program using C. C++ was (or still is) considered to be an improvement
- to the C language. I remember reading Stephen Prata as the textbook
- and Lippman as the reference for learning C++. The course was called
- "Object Oriented Programming using C++". This meant a paradigm shift
- from the erstwhile imperative programming (using a language like C).
- We were taught, as part of the course, to think in terms of <i>objects</i>.
- Real world objects to be precise. It could be abstract too. Jargon such as inheritance, polymorphism and
- encapsulation became a parlance. A parlance associated with object
- orientation. I was wondering back then, "Why C++? when C could do it"
- The programming constructs such as a <i>class</i> in C++ seemed alien. I
- started off with rewriting C programs in C++. It was an easier way to learn the
- syntax and features of a new programming language. Rewrite. I remember
- writing simple programs for calculating simple interest, bank account (just
- deposit, withdraw and interest calculation) and so on. Gradually, the
- object oriented features were introduced and programs for the same
- were implemented. I found C++ to be a little simpler to understand.
- </p>
- </div>
- </div>
- <div id="outline-container-orga91db2f" class="outline-3">
- <h3 id="orga91db2f"><span class="section-number-3">1.2</span> The trauma</h3>
- <div class="outline-text-3" id="text-1-2">
- <p>
- C was a horror when it came to pointers, function pointers,
- multi-dimensional arrays, and implementing higher level data structures like trees,
- dictionaries etc. I had real trouble writing programs for implementing
- data structures. Huffman's algorithm in particular was a real challenge. Till date,
- I have not been able to implement it in either C or C++. Joel Spolsky,
- a software developer from New York, who created StackOverflow.com,
- states: 'programming is an <i>aptitude</i>' in one of his blogs. The
- real mettle of a programmer lies in the ability to think through
- abstractions. Two things that matter the most according to his blog are:
- Pointers and Recursion. He fails to understand why most people cannot
- think through these abstractions. It is probably an innate ability of
- a person and not something that one can practice and acquire. I would even
- go to an extent of calling it a <i>talent</i>. One can acquire skills through
- practice but to become a successful programmer, say someone like Linus
- Torvalds, one has to have this in-born ability.
- Back to C++, I did manage to get good grades in that course, the only
- challenge with C++ was friend functions. Why befriend someone when you
- can acquaint? Bjarne Stroustrup, the creator of C++, may have a strong
- reasoning behind that. Bjarne's talk on Big Think channel of YouTube
- was inspiring. I found his way of working noteworthy. He would use a
- small laptop, eleven or thirteen inches, not more than that, to
- write programs during his travels, and use a headphone to listen to a
- wide collection of music while programming. I would call Torvalds,
- Stroustrup and their likes as 'Celebrity Artists'. Artists who hone and
- master the art of computer programming and wield influence on a lot of
- fellow programmers. I remember a college professor of mine, who
- used C++ as a language of choice for understanding abstractions. From
- machine level to the application level: C++ did it all. Things such as
- 'name mangling' comes to my mind. He had worked at Yahoo, prior to
- joining our college. I remember him saying -
- "The purpose of inheritance is to avoid if-else conditions in the
- program". I couldn't counter that argument till date.
- On the contrary, it was reaffirmed by one of my senior
- colleagues at work, years later. Standard template library (STL) was a life
- saviour as it provided all the data structures that a C++ programmer
- would ever need. This was the case, at least back in 2009. After that, I learnt
- Java and never touched C++ for at least a decade to come.
- </p>
- </div>
- </div>
- <div id="outline-container-org37ebed7" class="outline-3">
- <h3 id="org37ebed7"><span class="section-number-3">1.3</span> Aftermath</h3>
- <div class="outline-text-3" id="text-1-3">
- <p>
- During 2018-19, I was part of Thirty Meter Telescope project's Observatory software quality
- assurance team, wherein I felt the urge to write some C++ code. I took
- up the task of porting objects written in Scala/Java to C++. Some interfaces
- were needed for the Event services, as part of the observatory
- software. After that, when I moved to another organisation and started working on
- Cisco WebEx teams software, I had tried to use C++ for a certain
- feature called 'Buttons and Cards'. I had to meddle with C++ code for
- that. I gave up after a week or so. The cognitive load of going
- through files of C++ code was overwhelming me. It wasn't the C++ that
- I had learnt in college; C++ 11, 17 were in vogue now. It had asynchronous
- functions and weird callbacks. Tad harder to understand using a debugger. I resorted
- to Java and JavaScript, the languages which almost anyone can program using,
- without many hassles. I am an avid gamer and most of AAA titles
- released are written using C++. The language for building modern day
- console games is C++. I remember tutoring fundamentals of Python
- programming to Prince, a thirteen year old kid from USA, a year ago,
- who said - "Minecraft in C++ is faster than Minecraft in Java". He
- wanted to learn C++ so that he could tweak Minecraft code. I was
- shocked and perplexed. I initiated C++,
- starting with the usual 'Hello world' program. The verbosity of C++ as
- compared to say Python, made it hard for Prince to write programs. Prince and I
- were used to the Python's bonhomie. Both of us struggled at the
- beginning, later we decided to learn something else.
- </p>
- </div>
- </div>
- </div>
- </div>
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- <div id="postamble" class="status">
- <p class="author">Author: Girish</p>
- <p class="date">Created: 2022-01-27 Thu 11:37</p>
- <p>Copyright © 2019 to present, Girish M <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"><img
- alt="Creative Commons License" style="border-width:0" src="assets/img/cc.png" /></a><br />This work is licensed
- under a <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">Creative Commons
- Attribution 4.0 International License</a>. The source for this web-page can be found <a
- href="https://notabug.org/girishm/girishm.nfshost.com/src/test/AffairWithCPP.html">here</a>
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