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Ask HN: Should I learn C or C++?

1 points by init-as ↗ HN
I am going to college in the US in September as an international student but my school year finished in January. I have about 8 more months of doing nothing on my hands and had thought about learning C or C++ just because I have always heard that they give you a good base knowledge of how other languages work under the hood. I would say I'm fluent in Java, Swift and Python.

Do you have any recommendations for which one I should tackle (or neither)? If you had a good resource to help me learn as someone who isn't a beginner, that would also be great too. Thanks.

12 comments

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jki275
Learn both. C will make you a better programmer, and C++ will set you up for success in the world.
init-as
Fair, which one would you recommend picking up first?
icedchai
Nearly everything you learn with C can be applied to C++ (though some may be frowned upon in modern code bases.) So I recommend learning C...
cimmanom
C first. C++ was originally a superset of C, though my understanding is that that is no longer strictly the case.

Still, learning C will make it easier to learn C++, because C is far simpler and in order to understand C++ you’ll have to master C’s concepts anyway.

kazinator
C++ still the superset of a language that is a dialect of C. In terms of ISO, it's probably still closest to the C90 dialect, with some C99-like features (inline functions, // comments).
jki275
I would agree -- C first. C is foundational knowledge imo.
smt88
What do you mean when you say C++ would set them up for success?
jki275
Lots of jobs for C++ programmers. It's still industry standard in many industries.
smt88
It sounds like you’re way ahead of most of your peers when it comes to technical skills. Why not spend the time developing/practicing social skills or on another hobby altogether?

People burn out on coding faster than they think, and you have a lifetime to do it in your career. You’ll probably never get 8 months of free time again, though.

arcticwombat
I suggest looking into the curriculum of your upcoming studies and getting a headstart with whatever language(s) you'll be studying.

The simple truth is that unless you truly specialize, your software developer career is going to be a long string of learning things to solve a problem.

Look up the language you'll be studying, pick one that sounds neat, and grab the nearest tutorial that includes the words "For beginners" in the title.

rzzzwilson
I'd say start with C because it is closer to the hardware and it's simpler to learn than C++. You will find it easier to pick up C++ later if that is required.

If you know a few other languages it shouldn't take 8 months to become at least proficient at C, so you might then try another language that really stretches your brain. Something like Haskell or even a Lisp. After a language that gets closer to the hardware like C try something very abstract and high level. That's why I mention Lisp above. Reading SICP [0] made me realise just how much of a logical system you can synthesize from almost nothing.

[0] Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structure_and_Interpretation_o...

kazinator
If you don't know C, you can hardly write a C++ main function that processes the arguments. Or use C libraries effectively (without someone who does know the C-like subset of C++ having written a class framework for you which wraps them).