In C++, if you're dealing with an object of a class type, you always assume that an assignment operator or cctor is being invoked when you see an assignment being performed or something being passed around by value. At least I always do. Reason being is that if the programmer decided to make it a class, it probably has non-trivial implementation details necessitating the need for op=() and a cctor. It probably needs a destructor too. Hence the Law of the Big Three. Some places even consider it a bug if a class doesn't have these three member functions (or at least documented that the compiler-generated versions will be used) and will get flagged during a code review.

The question was "when are copy constructors and assignment operators called". I listed the times when they are. The fact that the compiler might optimize these situations away is irrelevant. You assume that it won't and code accordingly.

Copy constructors are called when objects are passed or returned by value. Assignment operators are called when you make an assignment. If you do not provide a copy constructor or an assignment operator, the compiler will synthesize one for you.

What else is there?

For those looking for a cross platform solution, there's also RAD Studio XE from Embarcadero (current owners of Delphi and C++ Builder). RAD Studio includes both Delphi and C++ Builder, so you can either go Object Pascal or C++. The cross platform framework you'll be learning would be their Firemonkey API. With this package, you can develop for Android, iOS, and Windows from one code base (however I'm guessing, as with the case with all cross platform solutions, your mileage may vary).

I haven't tried it myself, but I've been looking seriously into it. I would be interested to see if anybody has actually tried this tool for mobile development and would care to share their experiences.

Latest stable of XBMC, Gotham, now works completely out of the box on Ouya. 1080p, AC3 and DTS decoding, AC3/DTS passthrough, everything. And as a bonus, you get a silky smooth XBMC interface experience unlike on the Pi.

You have a point about the CEC thing tho. Just get a remote with an IR learning function so you can use that to turn the TV on/off and control the volume on your receiver. Everything else will be used to control the Ouya.

You can do encapsulation easy enough in C. But what about inheritance and dynamic binding?

The point of OO languages is to be able to support OO constructs and make implemented OO designs easier. True, you can do all those OO things in C. But without language support, it gets to a point where the pros are outweighed by the cons. C++ and Objective C were invented for a reason.

You should try actually working with people outside of academia and you will quickly learn that just because there degree says "engineer" on it doesn't make them an engineer. You will learn the converse to be true as well. I've encountered people with physics degrees and computer science degrees hold "engineering-type" positions who I would say were actual engineers compared to people who were really nothing more than "paper" engineers.

Something tells me you've never seen the curriculums for undergraduate software engineering degrees. They're computer science degrees with mandatory software management courses thrown in replacing what would've been elective courses in Computer Sceince. At least in the States they are. Nothing about the curriculums make them more "engineering-like" than Computer Science. Unless my CS program just happened to be more "engineering-like" compared to everybody else. Perhaps ABET accreditation makes all the difference.

I'm a programmer and I don't play games any more :(. Not sure what happened. In college, I damn near flunked out because I played Quake too much. But ever since I started working professionally (10 years now), I simply don't have the motivation to load up a game and play it.

University is not trade school. You go there to get educated. If all you know is one narrow field, then you can hardly call yourself educated.

You can do what I did and take the general ed classes at the local community college, then just transfer the credits in. A lot cheaper that way.

And out of all the general ed classes you need to take, I'd have to say the English 101 class is the most important. It's just down right embarrassing to claim that you are educated, but can't even write a coherent paper. And yes, you do that a lot in the professional world. Or in more general, you need to be able to communicate effectively. I know this one senior developer who said one of the best developers he's ever had was a guy whose degree wasn't in CS or related field but in English. And it was simply because he was knew how to communicate his thoughts in a clear and effective manner. His code might not have been as tight and efficient as a CS guy, but in the grand scheme of things that doesn't matter as much as being able to write clear and maintainable code.

Who knows, you might actually enjoy some of those non-CS classes. I know I liked the critical thinking class I took to fulfill a humanities credit. That surprised me because I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have signed up for a class like that if I wasn't forced to pick something.

VC2010's debugger allows breakpoints in lambdas. Just sayin' ...

Dunno about you, but I find lambda's extremely useful. It lets me use Boost's signals and slots without using that butt ugly boost bind() function. I also like using them to do nested functions like you could in Pascal. The new overloaded meaning for the auto keyword is also a pretty awesome addition. The compiler I use the most these days (VC 2010) doesn't do typesafe enums yet, but I see myself using that a lot when it comes too.

I put a Linux box with an SSH server and rsync on my FIOS line. Then I use rsync for Android to sync file shares between the Linux box and my Android tablet. This has been working fine for me. It might even be more secure than Dropbox.

When someone says "American", normal people that have at least two brain cells to rub together don't think "Canadian", "Mexican", "Brazilian", "Peruvian", "Haitian", or whatever country that happen to exist here on the American continents. They think "citizen of the U.S.". A person who refers to us as "USians" might think he's being clever, but in reality to everybody else he just looks like a gigantic douche bag. Jokes on him. I hope he doesn't do that in real life in front of strangers.

A person is an engineer because of what he does, not because some piece of paper says he is.