Re: C vs C++ for GTK

[Allin Cottrell <cottrell wfu edu>]

On Sat, 24 Nov 2007, Patrick wrote:

> Sorry for the flame war bait, I know how passionate language debates 
> get  but I need some guidance. I am using PyGTK right now and I am happy 
> with it, but a day is coming soon were the speed limitations and 
> less-then-straight-forward threading will be an issue.
>
> I figure my next move should be to learn C or C++. I would like to stay 
> up-to-date with things and I would like to be able to reuse GTK code 
> from other Apps.
>
> I thought that C++ must be the way to go as it can do everything that C 
> can "plus plus" but some heavy hitters don't seem enthused with it, 

I'll restrict myself to the factual.  

C++ is almost but not exactly a superset of C.  However, don't let 
that fool you into thinking that if you learn C++ you've 
automatically learned C as a bonus.  The programming idioms are 
quite different in the two languages.  

One reason for going with C is that the great bulk of free 
software is in C, including GLib and GTK.  The main exception 
is Qt, the basis for KDE.  So if you might want to get into KDE 
programming, maybe learning C++ would be better.

Allin Cottrell.