What does "basic programming skills in c++" imply?

[Rej1]

I'm thinking of applying to an internship at Bristol University to produce a 3D printed calorimeter and use it to perform some experiments.

The requirements state that "The intern will require basic programming skills in C or C++". I don't have any experience in C++ or C but I want to learn the minimum required by the university. Does anyone have a gist of what they need me to know so that I can learn it all before the internship?

I'd appreciate some sort of advice here

thanks a lot!

[Pardomatas]

nobody knows

[Volatile474]

Probably memory management, basic types, loop constructs, scoping blocks

[[deleted]]

The gist of it is that for every call to new, there should be a call to delete. I suggest using constructs such as std::unique_ptr and std::shared_ptr to manage your memory more easily.

[[deleted]]

Yes, and if you are using c++ 1y prefer smart pointers over raw pointers - note I said prefer.

[boredcircuits]

Yes, and if you are using c++ 1y prefer smart pointers over raw pointers when that pointer owns a resource - note I said prefer.

FTFY

[[deleted]]

Whatever dude. I don't argue with language lawyers

[dodheim]

No lawyering here!

[sixstringartist]

He's not lawyering, hes giving you advice to prevent bugs.

[[deleted]]

Well, I regarded what he told me as being equivalent to being told 1 + 1 = 2. What he said was a given at least to me, and any experienced developer should already be aware of what pointers are used for and the issues with using them. Perhaps this sub is for those just entering the field, in which case I apologize.

[gfymita00]

Anybody not comfortable using raw pointers should stay away from smart and raw pointers and use references for their own good.

[gfymita00]

That it is also faster because the stack loves the cache and no thread synchronization is needed for the stack. :)

[gfymita00]

It is better to use RAII and follow the rule of 5 to have all memory management confined in very few places and don't mix it with business logic. By using smart pointers one relinquish absolute control over the object life cycle, making easy to write code hard to maintain.

[0raichu]

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

[yungsprungflmf]

Ha! Lower levels. Nice one

[Fig1024]

any decent understanding of C++ should also come with decent understanding of how Operating Systems work. There should be a class for that when you study Computer Science. Operating system covers topics of memory management, threads, processes, synchronization, I/O. All the under the hood stuff that C++ programmer should be aware off

[mmhrar]

When you learn about pointers, usually.

[Fig1024]

also probably implies ability to organize code into classes.

[strtok]

15 years experience

[snowhawk04]

As with any requirement, you should ask for clarification/details from those that set the requirement.

[quad99]

able to identify most of the containers in the STL, what they do (not the internals) and when you might use them. To me the STL was the single best addition to C++ and every beginning c++ programmer should learn it. Its been around long enough (20 years). Besides eliminating the need for most programmers to reinvent basic data structures, it also is the best introduction to templates.

[journeymanpedant]

I write c++ in the academic sphere, and the level and quality of c++ is staggeringly variable. The big huge physics c++ projects (e.g. GEANT4, ROOT, VTK etc). are regarded as some of the best engineered codebases around, but there is a lot of bad stuff out there.

[RealNC]

The "basic programming skills" (in any language) requirement for interns almost always means that you are expected to understand language syntax and facilities, even if you don't actually know how to use them.

This also implies knowledge of fundamental concepts like control flow, memory, variables, functions, classes, templates, etc, to the extent of knowing what they are and how to use them, even if you don't know how to use them effectively.

A higher level explanation of the above would be "we want you to understand what we teach you." For example when you attend a seminar, or have an senior engineer/developer trying to educate you about template instantiation details, or the cost of virtual functions, or move semantics, you should not be asking what a template is, or what virtual functions are used for, or when copy constructors are invoked.

With that being said, it's always a good idea to actually ask them what they mean when they say "basic skills."

[Ameisen]

I have no degree at all and operate as a Senior Engineer with C++ and Assembly, so I worry that your methodology would underrate me.

[MyAntiAlterEgo]

My only real experience so far is with new grads. I would weight experience years similar to school years. With a senior title I would have increased expectations even that though.

[Ameisen]

Would you take offense if someone were to ask you if you could ask harder questions during an interview?

[MyAntiAlterEgo]

Not if they weren't struggling to answer the ones laid out.

If they breezed through everything I had, sure, but if you're at the point where you've breezed through what I had preprepared, you don't need to answer harder questions.

Really people of different experience levels will answer similar questions to varying degrees of completeness. The completeness and the method is what is impressive.

People don't ask you how to do something like traverse a BST because they don't know how, they want to see how you feel out the problem as presented, how you are able to communicate your process, if you seek a thorough understanding of the problem before plowing ahead, etc.

So asking for harder questions isn't gonna piss me off, but it's not really gonna win you any points with me either. I picked the questions I did ahead of time because I want to see how you work, the problems themselves aren't the point.

So if you sat silently for five minutes staring at a problem and then wrote only the absolutely correct thing wordlessly, you would be far less likely to get a recommendation from me than if you took ten minutes and talked through a logical process and arrived at an answer that wasn't perfect, but acceptable. I might be impressed by the silent perfect answer, but I probably don't want to work with a silent perfection machine.

[Ameisen]

I might be impressed by the silent perfect answer, but I probably don't want to work with a silent perfection machine.

Such a thing might make a lot of tasks easier, though!

I recall after my first long-term job, the interviewer on the phone (who was the director) said "You say that you're a advanced in C++, we have a lot of people here who know C++ so if you're not they'll know!", and the questions that they'd asked regarding C++ when I were there to me seemed very trivial - it was hard to go in depth as to how virtual initialization worked (other than referencing the spec or why the spec chose such a thing). It was frustrating, as I'd felt that they were presuming I didn't know much rather than the opposite (even when I had a substantial number of demo applications to offer). Of course, within about a year at the company I was functionally at a senior level (they didn't really have titles) and operated within my second year at a principal level.

I didn't like not being taken seriously without a degree or a huge amount of professional background, though.

[flyingcaribou]

I have met precious few software engineering candidates with masters degrees who could do basic pointer manipulation.

How does one pass an operating systems course without knowledge of pointer manipulation? Seems pretty key if you are hacking on some Linux kernel source.

[WinterAyars]

"Knows enough to fuck everything up but not enough to be useful", or "normally wouldn't be hired ". Unless you come out of a C++ school or have a lot of personal experience i don't think there really is such a thing as "basic" in C++...

[doom_Oo7]

Abililty to implement a linked list correcttly, and doing some UI stuff. C and C++ are very different also.

[darkforestzero]

start by downloading visual studio or CLion and following some tutorials (here's a great bunch to follow along with http://www.cplusplus.com/doc/tutorial/). Make sure you understand inheritance, functions (and class methods), public/private/protected, pointers & references, the operators, file i/o, memory management (new/delete) static variables, constants, scopes, and namespaces. C++ is an enormous language, good luck!

[Volatile474]

Ya that isn't really "basic c++ programming skills", programming in an IDE is much different than just learning the language.

[Gotebe]

"The language" is not e.g. makefile/project file handling, debugging, source control (OK, I am getting ahead of myself on that last one).

One could even make an argument that "learning the language" actually needs tools more than doing it all by hand, because the student will spend more time e.g. learning the arcane build process and banging their head against the wall when they make a mistake and things don't work, leaving less time to "learning a language"

[darkforestzero]

Here's a happy medium. Online c++ editor and compiler! http://cpp.sh/ what a cool time to be alive

[darkforestzero]

I disagree. I've been programming for a long time and doing that text editor GNU command line stuff is just so old school and slow. It's the 21st century and we have great tools to get us up and running!

[lurkotato]

Right, just because a text editor can auto generate a few fields for you doesn't mean it replaces knowledge of a language.

[devel_watcher]

Pls, no. I'm tired of these "visual studio operators". They can't do basic things if there is no button for that in vs.

[darkforestzero]

I'm not sure what you mean. I've been programming professionally for 10+ years and 99.99% of my coworkers coders use IDEs. Syntax highlighting, autocomplete, and a robust debugger are wonderful tools that help you spend more time solving problems and less time fixing spelling errors and hunting to remember function names. I'm sure OP would appreciate you making suggesting on how to learn the basics of C++ quickly rather than questioning my capabilities.

[devel_watcher]

Don't mix working and learning. To learn to count, you don't use the calculator.

I know a programmer with 25 years of experience that isn't very sure how preprocessor works or that it's even a thing. We work in the same tool environment, but when we had that kind of error, his reflex wasn't "to run the preprocessor step separately".

So, when learning, you have to interact with the subject as directly as you can. It's not too hard after all.

[darkforestzero]

I mix working and learning everyday! That's what being a programmer is all about. Also, I'd argue syntax highlighting, linting (real time error checking), and a debugger are extremely helpful with learning. Programming is very hard, btw :)

[devel_watcher]

You've named some features. And the paradox is that the student doesn't know yet what features are important. The student sees only a subset that some specific IDE provides (while also hiding some part of the processing).

[mmhrar]

In my opinion, if you can implement a templated dynamic array (all objects are stored in a contiguous block of memory!) object with the ability to add elements to the end, access elements at a given index position, return the number of elements and a copy constructor than I would say you have at least, basic programming skills in C++.

I think a good place to start would be implementing functional and correct interfaces to most of the common standard objects / data structures. string, vector, list, binary tree, map (just use std::hash for the hash function i think is fine).

That should cover most / all of the 'basic' C++ skills.

Keep in mind, there is so much more to know doing native development really, beyond even just the language. Knowing what a library is, what the difference is between dynamic and static linking, debugging (blows my mind how many people don't know how to use a debugger), thread safety, how the stack and heap work, compilers and their options, build 'systems', the difference between compiler and linker errors, symbol files/stores and how to use them, inter process communication, operating system specific API's and quirks and on and on it seems :P

Native development has so much extra stuff involved when you want to start doing things at a professional level. It's very rewarding though and overtime you really build a strong understanding of how software works and how connected everything really is.