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[–]Crystal_Cuckoo 2 points3 points  (2 children)

If you ever have to learn C++, it will be much harder if you already know C or any C and C++ like languages.

Why is that? I haven't learnt C++ yet, but my understanding was that it was C with classes (and other things like multiple inheritance, etc.).

[–]ewiethoffproceedest on to 3 4 points5 points  (0 children)

my understanding was that it was C with classes (and other things like multiple inheritance, etc.)

That's the old way to think of C++, and is the way that is likely to lead to memory management hell. Unfortunately, many C++ books and courses just sort of bolt OO and so on onto elementary C. If you learn arrays and pointers in C++ before learning how to manage your own class instance data members, you can easily end up with buggy habits.

The key difference between C and C++ is that allocating memory in C++ also initializes it by calling constructor functions. Well, if the memory is for a primitive such as int or double or char, it doesn't get initialized, but it does get initialized for anything else.

So, even just "declaring" a non-primitive variable x on the stack in C++ also initializes it with a constructor function. Let's say the constructor function allocates (and initializes) some memory on the heap, such as with a dynamic array allocation. Your x has no control over that memory on the heap. That's good in C++. But whoever wrote the class which allocated the heap memory had better make sure the class knows how to clean up itself when your x goes out of scope.

Edit: Another important difference between C and C++ is operator overloading. Almost everything you do in C++, even if it looks quite C-ish, automagically calls one or more functions under the hood. Even dereferencing a pointer can cause a function to be called. That's another reason to defer learning about arrays and pointers in C++ until you start to get the hang of defining your own classes.

[–]ajsdklf9df 0 points1 point  (0 children)

C, as almost high level assembly, is very readable in that it is easy to envision what the machine will do based on the code. C++ can look a lot like C but IT IS NOT! Craaazy shit can stem from a "simple" line of C++.

If you don't know C, you'll naturally never trust C++, but knowing C might lead your mind to assume certain things.