You might have thought this section was dedicated to my convincing you to use C++. I won’t. If you’re reading this book then you must already want or are required to learn C++. But! I would like to lay down some of my own opinions that have been boiled out of my brain after reading several websites and books on C++. And these don’t just apply to C++, but to all languages and the zealous opinions of their blind followers and hateful enemies. Although I have my biases and preference, I would like to think I am open-minded about programming languages; at least much more than I used to be. In fact I am a recovering opinionated evangelist – some never recover from this!
The result of using a particular programming language is very minor compared to the result of the programmer’s skill. You could very well make an Assembler program slower than the slowest Java applets and likewise a Java application that is faster than Microsoft Office (not too great a task J). Every programming language has its own potentials of grace and pit-fall, but these in themselves are only potentials. They must be realized by the programmer. And sometimes there are things beyond even that control. For example an exceedingly computationally-rich application will be slow in any language.
To be done:
I will save this section for later … you can find this information anywhere and it doesn’t take a genius to understand it.