C and C++ have a significant presence in the world of programming. Almost all low-level systems, such as operating systems and file systems, are written in C/C++. If you wish to be a system-level programmer, these are the programming languages that you should learn.
C++ is also widely used by competitive programmers owing to the fact that it is extremely fast and stable. It provides something called STL - Standard Template Library. This is a pool of ready-to-use libraries for various data structures, arithmetic operations, and algorithms. The library support and speed of the language make it a popular choice in the high-frequency trading community as well.
Difficulty level: Easy to moderate to learn
Career prospects: Good, though it is not the most common job opening
Pros:
- Several compilers and libraries to work with [C++]
- Eases accessing blocked or hidden objects by other programming languages [C]
- Faster execution of programs than most programming languages [C/C++]
- Forms the basis for understanding more complex programming languages [C/C++]
- Language of choice for multi-device, multi-platform app development [C++]
- Offers a great degree of portability [C]
- Procedure-oriented language with a group of function modules and blocks. These make debugging, testing, and maintaining the programs easier [C].
- Programs are more efficient and easy to understand [C/C++]
- Rich function library [C++]
- Runs close to the system hardware and hence, offers a low level of abstraction [C/C++]
- Support exception handling and function overloading [C++]
- Wide variety of application domains, such as games, GUI applications, and real-time mathematical simulations [C++]
Cons:
- Complex syntax [C/C++]
- Doesn’t support program namespace [C]
- Incapable of solving modern, real-world programming challenges [C]
- Less efficient object-oriented system compared to other OOP-based programming languages [C++]
- Need to manually create the high-level constructs [C]
- No garbage collection or dynamic memory allocation [C/C++]
- No run-time checking [C/C++]
- No strict type checking [C]
- Not an easy first-choice for learning programming [C/C++]
- Plagued by the issues of buffer overflow and memory corruption [C/C++]
- Smaller standard library [C]
This is best language for coding