Zarf's Journal: A sad truth...

... I am no longer employable as a C/C++ programmer. My experience in C/C++ is now so old and so spoiled by Perl and Java those are the only languages I can actually day dream about getting employment in. I'm going to try to do a C/C++ project on the side but this will be a hobby project. Sadly, I don't pass mustard with the hard-core geeks anymore. I am a Perl/Java weenie.

how so?

[Bill Dog]

I could see how if your only experience was in Java and Perl why it might be tough to find work in "C/C++", but if you've been employed in the past doing it, why wouldn't you be eligible? You've demonstrated that you can handle pointers (which are used heavily in the "C/C++" style), that you won't freak out if confronted with machine architecture facets, etc.

What do you mean by your Java and Perl experience has spoiled your other experience?

Re:

[insanecarbonbasedlif]

He's gone soft, Bill. Let Zarf drift away. It's was hardcore coding Zarf would have wanted.

Re:

[Zarf]

Sadly, the typical tech interview around here involves making someone find memory leaks, code with lots of mallocs, and then otherwise beating up on them and making fun of how stupid they are. I'm just too soft and squidgy now. I like garbage collection.

Re:

[Bill Dog]

...code with lots of mallocs...

You don't want to work at that kind of place anyways. A place with code and developers still stuck in the 1990's. I'll never go back to programming in that style.

Note that getting beaten up in an interview is still fair play. (Not being made fun of, tho.) I fancy myself a pretty big C++ hotshot, but my last job hunt end of last year under the pressure of an interview I muffed something that made me look pretty green. Especially for my age.

I'm just too soft and squidgy now. I l

Re:

[Zarf]

Okay, so in 1999 I was a newly minted college grad who's prime skill was C/C++. Today it's Perl/Java and what if I wanted to get back into C/C++ and get me a job doing some snazzy Linux hacking work? What do I need to learn? You've just added RAII to my list.

Re:

[Bill Dog]

You don't need to learn a thing. RAII is the kind of programming technique that the titans of the C++ community like Stroustrup and Sutter have been harping on since the early 90's, however, it seems basically no one has been listening. Every C++ shop I've worked at has in actuality been a "C/C++" shop, where they still program with lots of raw pointers and manual memory mgmt, so you're still good to go. From what I've seen, I'd say all you need to become familiar with are the C++ standard library container

Re:

[Zarf]

Wow. That's a rosy picture.

Re:

[Bill Dog]

In general no one wants to learn anything new. Truly new. People were willing to move from C++ to Java, and then to C#, because they're largely the same. But, for example, JavaScript is going to be adding class-based inheritance, because it has perfectly good prototype-based inheritance, but no one wants to learn it. It's equally valid, just different, but people aren't interested in learning something new. So js is going to add a completely redundant additional inheritance mechanism in its next version, be

I'm in the club...

[blueforce]

I've been doing... er... C# for the past few years and only doing maintenance on a couple of MFC apps, so I've gotten... rusty.

Now, I'm stuck in the C# bucket. What can I do, but move to management? :-)

Re:

[Zarf]

Funny story. I've been looking at doing some video game development for fun. So I looked at Wii development, PlayStation dev, and XBox. It turns out that XBox is the most open and free gaming console out there right now. So I just might start doing XBox development in my free time as a hobby. ... probably this fall.