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- Newsgroups: comp.object,comp.software-eng,comp.lang.c++
- Path: in2.uu.net!world!tej
- From: tej@world.std.com (Thomas E Janzen)
- Subject: Re: Moving from C to C++
- Message-ID: <DKvvK9.CB6@world.std.com>
- Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
- References: <4cs44p$3pk@ixnews8.ix.netcom.com>
- Date: Mon, 8 Jan 1996 22:24:08 GMT
-
- In article <4cs44p$3pk@ixnews8.ix.netcom.com>,
- Rocco Pochy <pochy@pop.ix.netcom.com> wrote:
- >
- >Hello.
- >
- >Our company is looking at moving toward C++ and the object-oriented
- >paradigm. Unfortunately, the engineering staff is trained in C. Does
-
- My experience has been that no one is trained in C.
- First send them to classes in ANSI C. Stroustrop said in a presentation
- that the Kernighan and Ritchie 2nd edition is written in the "common
- subset" of C and C++ ( I guess that's an intersection), so that book
- might help. Make sure that they use compiler warnings and ANSI flags,
- and learn the run-time library so that they stop writing their own
- version of functions already in it. If they each write their own
- versions of little functions that others in the project also write,
- then C++ will NOT help them with re-use, because they don't do it in C.
- If they don't write structured, low-complexity code, they will write
- junky C++.
-
- If they don't do design now, and design interfaces, negotiating the
- interfaces between developers writing communcating modules, they won't
- know how to do it in C++ either, so it won't help there.
-
- Write a coding standard and a style guide.
- Have them read lots of the new books on C coding, by Hatton and others.
-
- Of course you will take a schedule hit. There is no way around it.
- It will be a big hit.
-
- Koenig said in a class that C++ could be taught with real abstractions
- right from the beginning to new students; certainly knowledgable C
- programmers could learn objects right away (note that I did not say
- "experienced" C programmers, since most C programmers I meet are
- experienced in doing it wrong).
-
- Spend time learning differences between C++ compilers; C++ is not
- standard yet and it is changing as the vendors including FSF try to catch
- up with the standard committee.
-
- --
- Tom Janzen - tej@world.std.com USA Distributed Real-Time Data Acquisition S/W
- for Scientists and Engineers using POSIX, C, C++, X, Motif, Graphics, Audio
- There are no trivial programs, only trivial programmers.
-