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State Of C++ Deemed Iffy With "Upside Opportunity"
By Doug Caverly
Staff Writer
Article Date: 2009-07-09
Lots of subjects get covered by different "state of" talks. There's the State of the Union address delivered by the president, for example. There's also Conan O'Brien's hilarious "State of the Show" sketch (which he'll hopefully continue in his new timeslot). And for C++ fans, Justin James recently gave his opinion on the programming language's condition.
The news, according to James, isn't great; C++ isn't the equivalent of a global superpower or even the best talk show host. He wrote, "I believe the days of C++ as a general purpose programming language are quickly ending for most developers. . . . The performance issues that most developers face are not the kinds of issues that moving to native code will resolve; once you take performance out of the equation, C++ is a fairly unattractive option for application development in most cases."
That doesn't mean C++ is destined to imitate Atlantis (by sinking out of sight) or Carson Daly (by just plain sucking), though.
James argued, "I think there is a lot of upside opportunity for C++ in certain aspects of cloud computing. For some projects (think of ones that are well suited to supercomputers), the cloud offers C++ developers a way to get the same benefits of grid computing but with much more flexibility. There is a lot of overlap between those projects and the kinds of projects for which developers regularly use C++. As a result, I think cloud computing will replace or supplement grids and supercomputers in many projects and will provide an excellent opportunity to see C++ used in new and innovative ways."
So take some comfort from those last thoughts. Remember, too, that "state of" speeches wouldn't be given on an annual basis if things didn't change, so C++ may still find more ways to be of value.
About the Author:
Doug is a staff writer for WebProNews. Visit WebProNews for the latest eBusiness news.
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