[LAU] OT: C or C++?

[Gabriel M. Beddingfield]

On Wed, 13 Oct 2010, Josh Lawrence wrote:

> Sparing you a lot of useless back story here, but for fun a for
> personal amusement (NOT for serious work), I'd like to start learning
> a programming language.  If I'm gonna learn one, I might as well learn
> something that gets a lot of use in the open-source world.  So which
> one to choose?  C or C++?

C is easy to learn and it's possible to master it very 
quickly.  Many languages (esp. C++) have been based on its 
ideas and syntax.  I recommend starting there.  Good books 
will have titles like "C for Dummies" or "Learn C in 21 
days."

C++ is a large, somewhat complex language that takes a 
couple years (at least) to master.  If you get serious about 
programming, I recommend you move on to C++.  It makes it a 
lot easier to structure and maintain large projects and 
reuse code.  However, /how/ to use C++ effectively to this 
end is /not/ obvious.  A good book to this end is "Thinking 
in C++" by Bruce Eckels.  Avoid books like "Learn C++ in 21 
days."  Those books are usually just teaching a bastardized 
form of C.

-gabriel