Many of my friends who are graduating from college ask me, "should I learn Java or C++? Which will help me in the long run?"
Both languages have their merits and demerits, but what would you guys suggest these college graduates learn?
I am sure there is no correct answer for this question, but I would like to get the community opinion on this.
They are graduating from college and don't know Java or C++? Surely, these are not computer science majors right? The answer is clearly "both." Despite what many will see, I think not knowing C and C++ (which are not the same thing) is an impediment. I think all programmers should have a working knowledge of C and C++. And of course, knowing Java is important. I think to be a good programmer, you really need to have a catalog of languages.
Why should your graduating friends know either Java or C++? I can't see any reason for it. If they have chosen fields of endeavor, they should learn whatever their future colleagues will be using. On Wall Street that might be APL or Smalltalk (or Excel). In biology it will probably be Perl. Do physicists still use FORTRAN or have they switched to C++?
If they just want to understand computers, they should learn C++ because it is less magical, but it would be even better to learn C. As a bonus, if you start from zero C is much easier to learn than C++.
If they just want to learn some programming they should learn a well-designed scripting language like Lua, Ruby, or Python. Not Perl.
It depends on what they want to do. If they're going into IT then Java or C# is a reasonable choice. If they're going to write device drivers, then C is better. If they're going into game development, then C or C++ is probably better than Java. Those are just examples to make the general point that the language or languages they'll need depend on their goals.
You mean they don't know what they should learn. Surprising! surely, they are driven by job market. So, it depends what is hot at the time of their graduation. My suggestions to date,
In the long run what language you learn first makes no real difference (mine was BASIC as was common among many in my generation and I survived)
But that said, given a choice of either c++ or Java, either is a good choice. Java is probably easier to pickup as it has less legacy stuff like pointers and memory freeing and is probably less likely to get you into trouble bad habit wise
Maybe visual basic or c# would also be good choices (visual basic is supposed to be the worlds most known programming language due to its use as a scripting language in various apps)
Long term being exposed to many different languages is more valuable
C++ is a language that supports many programming paradigms. First, procedural programming like in C, object oriented programming like in Java, a fence of functional programming (and soon including lambda expressions) and generic and generative programming like what you've not seen before (current draft is 1340 pages long). For this reason, i wouldn't recommend C++ to a newcomer (people that hardly knows some computer language already). You should probably first learn one of Java or C# which enforce some OOP style of programming and are quite popular (so you have a big community if you have questions).
If you have learned a language, then you could get your hands on C++, which allows you to do nearly everything you want, including shooting yourself in the foot. I'm myself a big fan of C++, but i also see its inherent danger to newcomers, indeed. It has big power to someone knowing how to use it to build amazingly fast applications, still making clean interfaces and class hierarchies.
But this all is no reason you should only learn one of them. It makes quite a lot of sense to learn both of them, as others stated, or even more languages. So for example you see how the strict object oriented language Java copes with the not so strict language C# (including lambda and linq). It doesn't have to mean bad stuff if some language includes fewer possibilities. It's the way the language makes use of them and how these features integrate as a whole into it.
Assuming they ask for themself, i think i agree with BobbyShaftone. Someone coming from college, possibly having graduated in CS, should really know C++ and Java.
Learning languages takes time.
So your friends should ask themselves how much time they want to invest in learning languages, and what for...
Do they want something easy, fast and powerful. They should learn Java, or C#. With their gigantic standard library, they'll be able to write almost any application but for some very limited cases. C# has more features, but for now, I feel more confortable with Java's write once, run everywhere than C#'s "hey, you have Mono on Linux, too"...
But Java won't give them familiarity about things work under the covers. For that, familiarity with C and C++ is a good start. By own experience with C++ is that most C-like languages comes easily once you have average expertise with C++. The opposite cannot be said.
So, if they want to learn a language to do things for a living, Java (or C#) is a good choice. If they want to go deeper, and are willing to invest time (including personal time) to learn, starting from C, and then moving to C++ would be a good idea (the transition from C to C++ is not always smooth, so be prepared to unlearn some C concept when moving to C++).
A college graduate should know either Java or C++ really well. At least, if it is a reputable school...
However, I would recommend that C++ be learned if they don't know C. You need to know your memory model to really understand your tool.
If they have a solid machine background, but not so hot at the VM world, Java is a decent choice.
However, I would suggest that the most employable language today is C#, and probably the easiest to work with.
C is procedural language. C++ is a good blend of both Procedural and Object Oriented. C# is very abstract leaning heavily on both Object Oriented and the .NET framework. Java is also very abstract and leans heavily on Oject Oriented processing. By going directly into Object Oriented programming you will miss some basic concepts and also may find the learning curve difficult and frustrating.
You want to walk before you run so if you have no programming experience start with C. If you have programming experience such as Pascal, Fortran, Assembler, PL1, Cobol etc then move to c++ and then on to C# and or Java.
Just my way of doing the carrer path.
It depends on what field they are going into. If they're going into a standard business shop, then, based on my experience to date, knowing C++ isn't really going to help. 90-99% of applications needed for internal use by a business or external use as a provided service don't require the level of control or system knowledge given by C++. If this is the field they are going into, I'd recommend Java or C#.
Now, that said, every shop is different; and knowing how C and/or C++ works will be worthwhile, if only to get rid of magical thinking.
For those who are still interested in this question, I recommend reading the following paper from adacore.com:
A principled approach to software engineering
Thursday February 5, 2009
This paper examines the use of Java as a first programming language, in the light of well-established principles of software engineering, and the increasing concern with correctness, performance, and maintainability. We argue that Java is markedly inferior to Ada or C++ as a language for introductory Computer Science courses, and that its widespread use in the training of tomorrow’s software engineers is counterproductive.
You can't learn to program if you don't know how to correctly handle your memory allocations. So don't start with Java, it'll just leave to confusion later. Imagine using a string class in Java, then switching to C++ and having to remember to call delete when you're done with it.
You should ask yourself, why are you trying to learn a language,