Subj : Re: C++
To   : Nightfox
From : Dr. What
Date : Wed Nov 13 2019 06:13 pm

-=> Nightfox wrote to Dr. What <=-

 Ni> I've been a developer since 2003, and I've used C++ at almost every job
 Ni> I've had.

I've been a developer since 1987 and I've used C++ for only 2 jobs.
In both cases, the only reason we used C++ was because that was really the only
option.

In the last 20 years, it's beem mainly JavaScript, Java, C#, Perl.  And even
COBOL.

 Ni> One of the companies I've worked at is Intel, where C++ is
 Ni> used quite a bit.  There are also a lot of math libraries, such as the
 Ni> Cuda libraries that make use of Nvidia's GPUs for number-crunching,
 Ni> that interface with C/C++.  I've intereviewed for another job recently
 Ni> at another company where C++ is used for much of their work
 Ni> (electronics test instrumentation tools and wireless communication
 Ni> software).

Which makes sense.  But that type of programming is the exception, not the rule
today.

 Ni> Perhaps if C++ isn't as common as other languages, C++
 Ni> software is still out there, and it seems to me C++ is still a fairly
 Ni> popular language.

My argument is that C++ is about as popular as COBOL.  Both languages still
have a large installed base and are still in use.

The issue comes from the other costs of software: development and maintenance. 
It costs much more to develop software in C++ than a modern programming
language.   Companies are looking to use more modern programming languages that
lower those development and maintenance costs - even if it costs more to run
because computer time is cheap today.

Eric S. Raymond has several good articles on this topic.
http://esr.ibiblio.org/

You might want to check out the Julia programming language.  It promises to
have the ease of development like Python, but the speed of C.  I've only played
with it a bit, but it does seem to come close to meeting those promises.

 Ni> C++ started to get regular updates to its standard in 2011 though, and
 Ni> the C++ standard is being updated every 3 years now.  There's the C++11
 Ni> standard, C++14, C++17, and soon C++20.  I don't imagine the C++
 Ni> standard would be updated so much if there wasn't enough demand for
 Ni> C++.

COBOL and FORTRAN have also been updated in recent years (FORTRAN in 2018 and
COBOL in 2014).  But that doesn't mean that they are growing in demand.
 
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