Anyone else feel scammed by learning C++98 ?

[Jamin2112]

I spent countless hours learning about and writing things like std::string::const_iterator. Now there's stuff like auto, for-each loops, etc. What a scam! I still have my C++ Primer book from 5 years ago. It cost me like $200 and what it taught me was uselessly complex.

 

[DrZoidberg]

If you don't want to do things in an unnecessarily complex way, then why did you learn C++ in the first place? There are a lot of less complex languages out there.

 

[SteamKing]

And there are few programming books which are worth a fraction of $200.00.

 

[Mark44]

I don't see how it's a scam. Programming languages change over time as a result of requests made to the committees who oversee them. The changes you (Jamin) list are peanuts in comparison to the changes made between Fortran IV and the newest variants of Fortran.

With regard to C, there are quite a few changes between C as described in K & R 1st edition and ANSI C of just a few years later. One area that is notable is the difference in how function parameters are declared. Here's an example of the older style.

fun (arg1, arg2)
int arg1, arg2;
{
   /* body of fun */
   ...
}

 

[FactChecker]

Depending on what you work on, there is a lot of use for basic C++ and even C. The newer stuff is great when it works, terrible when it doesn't work, and irrelevant on hardware or projects that don't have or don't allow those compilers.

 

[elusiveshame]

It depends on what you want to do with your knowledge and goals. The more you learn, the easier it will be to code in other languages and on other platforms.