Is C++ a good career path?
I live in London and it's really difficult to nail a decent job. I'm an IT technician and i'm seriously considering a move into software development because I've got a passion for C++. The following are my questions?
Will C++ make a good career path?
What is your outlook for a decent C++ programmer with regards to employment?
Is it reasonable to expect some small time "contract work" deep into my study based on acquired knowledge?
If necessary, what will make a good pairing to go along with C++ e.g C++/SQL SERVER?
Thank you very much, you could add any information you think I might need to know.
Comments
I am an advanced C++ programmer and I used to make my living writing 100% C++ 100% of the time.
Over the last few years I find the amount of C++ I write is diminishing. The deliverables for the last big project I worked on were all C++, but the actual code was prototyped in C# first because it was quicker and cleaner to do it that way. All the debugging and analysis support tools I wrote for the project were also in C#. Overall I probably only spent 40% of my time using C++.
The project I'm currently working on will contain a large quantity of C++ deliverable, however I have yet to write any new C++ but have converted a significant quantity of C++ from outside the project into C#.
I am not a typical developer and I don't work for a typical organisation, we're a research group. I am the type of person who has previously spent my life writing C++, but now I do not and I believe that will be an increasing industry trend.
The fundamentals of C++ are perhaps good to know and it is the native language of choice outside of the Apple world. Looking at Apple, they're future appears to be in mobile platforms. Apple is a hardware design company and their software is often constructed in out moded ways. They are also pretty much the only company still using a C++-like language for application development, Android uses Java and Windows Phone C#.
You also ask about what other technology to pair with your language. I'd suggest that C++ and SQL Server were poor bed fellows. With C++ you'd probably be expected to learn some exotic technologies to go with it, such as specific driver technologies for devices. C++ is about as low-level as it gets in programming today, SQL Server is about as high-level as it gets. Again, people using SQL with a programming language are probably pairing it with Java or C#.
So quick answers to all your questions:
Will C++ make a good career path? Yes over the next decade, but it is the past and its use will diminish. It is tied to Unix and Windows and those technologies are nearing the end of their lives.
A decent C++ programmer has job security for the next few years, but the market is competitive.
While studying it is unlikely you would easily pick up contract work, unless you're the sort of person who actively sells themselves. C++ projects tend to be long term affairs with a steep learning curve at the start, so finding contract work measured in days or weeks is rare, C++ work tends to be measured in high multiples of months.
1
2
I am a lead developer in a New York-based company, and in my opinion, there's a lot of demand for C++ programmers today and for the foreseeable future. It's been hard to find decent C++ programmers lately, and the ones we find are hard to hold on to, because Wall Street is 10 minutes away, and they can pay even more than we do.
Java and C# took away most of the middle ground between easy, boring. and unrewarding C++ jobs (legacy code support, etc) and high-stakes high-reward C++ jobs (markets, telecom, industrial automation, medical, military, and other stuff this language is best at), and not a lot of people have the determination to cross that gap.
I don't think C++ is good for small time contract work, though - web technologies are probably better in that respect. In the areas I've worked, good secondary areas of expertise are concurrent programming (everything is multicore multithreaded), OOP (good design skills are always needed), and networking/system architecture/etc. Well, and SQL, can't escape that.
Peteams is right in his response. C++ is a declining language and not a great one to start with in 2011. If you are going to specialise in C++ be prepared to work on older legacy systems. Nowadays the name of the game is flexibility. Learn many languages and technologies and dance between them as needed.
C# and Java are a better start point than C++ these days - both derive from C++. At lease one of PHP, Perl and Python is good too
WordPress it's the best way to create and manage websites and blogs.
Here is the website where i have download Wordpress for free http://j.mp/1pkhrGi
c++ is absolutely the way to go. it is the standard programming language today. Even if the company you work at does not use c++ at all (which is very rare), ten almost every language used today is a subset of c++ or c, so they wil have very similar syntax to each-other
I'm also having same confusion, I'm good at C++ and JAVA but Offered salary is rupees 15k per month after 3 month training and 6k salary in training period.... I will also have to sign a contract of 18 month ... Is it a comfortable offer .... Will it give me a good career.... pls. advice me. thanks!
The writing jobs aren’t complex, so any individual who has respectable writing abilities will be ready to excel so if you will like to give it a shoot at earning cash easily and fun you need to consider a internet site
hey , yeah c++ is a good language to learn. You can find free online books, pdf versions, in order to learn.