On Friday 09 November 2001 06:41, Vern W Heesch wrote: > I also wish to thank you for taking the time to explain what the problem is > in such a way that I could 'see' it. This may seem stupid, but is this C or > C++ ?
This happens to be C, however, C++ files are (generally) denoted by a (dot)cpp extension, in which case the makefile(s) and the compiler(s) take care of the differences in a one shoe fits all. >Is there a big difference between the two? Umm er, no. Not _really_. At one level C++ is an oops, (read Object) language, and everything about C is a subset of C++. This was intentional on the part of the author (Barn Stroustroup et al). Anything and everything you write in C can be compiled as a C++ file. Put another way, you could write all your code as C, but use a C++ compiler to crunch it. Although not recommended by those who should know, you can use only those parts of C++ that are useful to you and ignore the crap. Ie, use C but if there's something useful in C++, take advantage. C is Unix and Unix is C. It can be argued that unix (all flavours) have survived in 'universality', ie across a wide spectrum of machines and architectures because C allows it to. Certainly there's nothin much in any *nix OS to shout about, it's mostly archaic, but it's strength has been and remains, the 100.000+ programmers 'out there' that can supply C source code for almost anything. It was the underlying C base of Linux that scared Microsoft witless in the halloween documents. They have no answer to the universal / international acceptance of this language. It was one of the primary reasons why Big Bill sacked his entire DOS 6.0 developers, Dos is C and could be maintained by just about anyone. However, the jury is out on C++. There are 'better' (tm) langauges about. Java is one of them and is quoted as being what C++ should have been. As a learning curve I would try and understand C, because it is fundamental to nearly everything you do in Linux, and I'd jump to Java because it's where the money is, in internet. >I ask because I think I > should take some classes on it, www.lesbell.com.au Les Bell's C tutorials have some good chapter xamples. Les made a very comfortable living, for some years, offering what he supplies for free online, as a commercial course. Also, you can't go past or very own Kurtwerks. His books are excellent. -- http://linux.nf -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] _________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ Linux-users mailing list Archives, Digests, etc at http://linux.nf/mailman/listinfo/linux-users
