im fairly new to visual C++. I am very experienced in Qbasic/VB, and have some experience with C++, but none with visual C++. I'm looking to get out of the dark ages and find a more powerful language without so many bottlenecks. QBasic is very slow of course, and VisualBasic is strictly for Applications. I'd like to start programming in Visual C++ as my main language, rather than QB. But before I get deep into the language, I was wondering if I could get some input on the languages, C, C++, and visual C++. From limited C/C++ experience, I know they are more complex and harder to read/understand, but theres nothing i cant eventually figure out. I know C was developed in the 60s, and dominated until C++ was released as a bulkier, fancier version of C with more bells & whistles. In your opinion, is C or C++ better and why? And what are they better suited for? And besides the object/event based programming system (rather than spaghetti-string) what is different between C++ and visual C++? What are they best suited for? Like games/apps/etc. Thanks

Well, first Visual C++ is simply Microsoft's C++ compiler. It makes it a lot easier to develop Windows applications because it uses MFC and has built in resource editors. Underneath the pretty pictures it's just C++.

C++ is more than just C with more bells and whistles. C++ was originally going to be called 'C with Classes'. It came to be know as C++ instead, meaning 'C, increased'. It adds quite a few new things including object oriented programming (OOP) using classes, and better control over operators and memory, all while staying close to the hardware like C.

If you're going to go into the 'C-ish' realm of programming, use C++. If you know C++ you can sit down and write a C app very easily, it's just a matter of looking up the related functions and libraries. If you know C you can pick up C++ pretty quick, but I think the learning curve from C to C++ is quite a bit steeper than going from C++ to C.

So, in the end, I'd reccomend using C++, and if you're going to write Windows applications, it'd probably be worth using Microsoft's Visual C++ IDE. Version 6.0 is still widely used, so unless you plan to work heavily with .NET it's what I'd suggest, otherwise take a look at Visual C++ .NET.

"In your opinion, is C or C++ better and why? "

C++ replaced C for the most part, it is better in the sense of object oriented programming and derived methodologies. There is still legacy code out there being used that is written in C that needs to be maintained. My first job was to maintain a 24k line C program.

"And what are they better suited for? "

If you can think about it, you can create it in C++, within reason and physical constraints, of course.

"what is different between C++ and visual C++?"

Visual C++ just gives you a pretty picture.

"What are they best suited for?"

Anything you want.

IR