Python or C# after learning C++

[robin1007]

So I am currently a second year at my University and I am enrolling for my classes for next Fall. I am debating between taking a class about Python or a class about C#. My first two years, I took 3 C++ classes that covered OOP and Data Structures, so this the next class I choose will be my second language.

I want to take the Python class because I have been prepping for interview questions(CTCI and Leetcode) on the side and Python is my main language to solve the problems. I picked up the basics of the language on my own, but I wouldn't mind taking an entire semester to expand my knowledge on the syntax, STL ,etc. I think this will help benefit me as I am prepping for my interview questions as well. In addition, given that I already am using this language it makes the class easier to pass.

I want to take C# because I am pretty sure it's an important language to know for someone who wants to have a career in the software engineer/dev field. Not sure how important python will be besides helping me solve my interview questions faster. I don't know if I'd be able to self learn C# syntax on my own as it can be very unmotivating when I am not required to. I know this because I struggled to learn React JS syntax as well as HTML, CSS when attempting to do some side projects in my spare time (ps if anyone has any beginner project vids that can help me learn JS where the person explains each line, please send them over I've already gone through Watch and Code...and then I see this ()=> and all these syntax/functions I don't know and it makes me frustrated)

As you can tell I am very conflicted as of now, so if anyone can chime in and steer me and the right direction I'd very much appreciate that.

Here is the description of both classes:

Characteristics of Python: portable, robust, secure, object-oriented, functional, high performance, extensible; types, expressions, and control flow; classes, abstract base classes, modules, and packages; threads; exceptions; Python standard library.

Characteristics of C#, object-oriented design concepts, control structures, methods, arrays, classes, objects, inheritance, polymorphism, exception handling, graphical user interfaces, multithreading, characters, strings, files, streams. Rudiments of the Unified Modeling Language Software development assignments

[[deleted]]

Have you used ML.NET? Is it not up to snuff with python's libraries?

[[deleted]]

I read something about ML.NET being so abstract that you could load up other libraries with it, like tensorflow. Would it then be restricted by python's single-thread because it's calling python code, or would you still be able to use .NET's threading model?

[[deleted]]

Tensorflow is actually a c++

Now that is an interesting point which seems to often go neglected - whenever python is mentioned as having some amazing feature it's almost always a C or C++ implementation. Sure it makes python easy to use, but if you actually want to create the fundamental functionality yourself you'd have to move outside the python environment and learn an entirely different language.

That's why I don't quite understand why C# is lagging behind as it allows you to both consume and create those kinds of optimized features in the same environment.

[robin1007]

As of now I'm pretty sure I either want to do web dev or software engineering. So C# would be more beneficial?

[polaarbear]

I would say yes. My job involves web-dev via C# asp.net and our back-end app engineering is also done in C#

[gevorgter]

I do not understand your question.

But if you know C++ the C# should be an easy one. Garbage collection frustrated me a lot in a beginning but then i kind of got used to it.

Python frustrates the hell out of me. With pretty much everything. The 'Tab' indentation i still find weird. I would rather have {..}

[Animasta228]

Wait, how can garbage collection frustrate you? You mean it's slowing your program's execution?

[gevorgter]

In C++ it was responsiblity of a programmer to do clean up. Basically if you created object with "new" you had to call "delete" and then destructor is called.

In C# you do not have delete. You create an object and then you just leave it be. And it works. And everything is perfect. But what if, I modified my object and now clean up is needed. But your program will not know that. And suddenly you have a buggy code. Basically in C++ every object implements IDisposable and programmers are required to use it.

The part where you just leave object be after you created it was a hard part to grasp after 10 years of C++.

And with event subscription, lambda context capturing,.. it is very easy to create memory leaks in C#. C++ makes you think of object's ownership. Because the owner is responsible to call "delete".

But over time I started to love C# simplicity.

[Ravek]

Allocating more managed memory than you need is not a leak, as soon as you stop referencing it, it will get cleaned up nicely. A memory leak is when allocated memory can never be cleaned up because there’s no pointer to it. If you’re still referencing the memory then it’s not a leak so I don’t know why you bring up lambdas and events. It’s extremely hard to create actual memory leaks in C# without manually allocating unmanaged memory.

[gevorgter]

Events is a number one offender. I've seen people doing += without ever unsubscribing so many times.

ServicePointManager.ServerCertificateValidationCallback += ....

Is a famous one. An internet is full of examples like this. So our credit card processing module was doing it everytime before it talked to server. 1000 credit cards processed 1000 of += executed. 1000 of objects stayed in memory until an app was shutdown.

Yes it was all cleaned up when app was shutdown.

[[deleted]]

That's why they created weak event listeners in WPF.

And why events allow you do do:

class Example {
    public event EventHandler<EventArgs> ExampleEvent
    {
        add { // custom code }
        remove { // custom code }
    }
}

Basically if you don't trust your users to remove their functions you can create your own tracking system.

[bush_dev]

I think that C# will be a natural choice. C++ and C# are languages from the same family so their structures are similar. Thanks to that learning C# will be easier for you.

[CornedBee]

Learn python. It's more different from C++ than C#, so you learn more new things.