About to start a Comp Sci MSc - should I choose C++ or Java?

[Al B. Sure!]

HC, you are an utterly despicable individual. A repulsive, snotty, arrogant, charmless little slimeball of a child who, unlike some of us, has never done a days work, never achieved anything, never delivered anything of value to anyone.

Ok, so I'm not up-to-speed about a few things, so ****ing what you vile little *****?

The fact is, I've been delivering real-world business solutions in IT since before you were born. I'm asking a perfectly simple question, hoping for some serious feedback from people who aren't odious, spoilt little rich kids who deserve to be impaled upon a large rusty spike.

****ing hell this place has gone downhill.

[Kuciwalker]

Says the person who hasn't achieved anything either, despite being 10 years older...

[a.kitman]

i give this thread a surprise

[Al B. Sure!]

Says the person who hasn't achieved anything either, despite being 10 years older...

I'm not 10 years older than HC.

And I have a college degree. Some, though not I, would consider that an achievement.

[Cort Haus]

Thanks for the serious replies guys - I appreciate it

[Provost Harrison]

I'm not 10 years older than HC.

And I have a college degree. Some, though not I, would consider that an achievement.

You're replying to our last utterly charmless slimeball sh*thead before HC. And from what I can tell, Kuci hasn't matured much with age either...

[Provost Harrison]

And good for you CH...I sometimes wonder whether, at some point down the line, whether it would be good to return to being a student for a short while. I don't really have the desire to do that just now though, mind you.

[BlackCat]

I don't know how important it is to have either C++ or Java on the official paper in England, so no comments on that, but if I should choose amongst those for wich I would have to pick up on my own, then it would be Java. I have picked up both languages on my own through work edu. and think java was the easier to get.

Oh, and I understand your situation - my formal languages are Algol, Pascal and Fortran

[duke o' york]

Now, despite the fact that I know nothing about programming beyond:
10 Print 'HC is a knob'
20 GoTo 10

then I was under the impression that Java is relied on by loads of mobile phone programs, and can only see this market expanding, so would have thought that was the best area to move into right now. Good luck CH, and don't forget to blow your student grant on booze within the first week.

[Cort Haus]

BC, I did COBOL, Pascal, Fortran and 6502 assembler. :-/ The university mainframe (a Harris) still had a punched card reader

In pre-Windows days I wrote stuff in Turbo Basic, but generally, getting chances with newer languages and technologies through work haven't been very fruitful. In one place I got to learn Powerbuilder and two Multimedia languages (including Director) which have since have died . The next place had two proprietary languages which I learned - for user interfaces and batch processing - but were no use anywhere else. I learned C off my own bat in the 90's, but never did much with it commercially.

I've got a bit jaded as I've got older, but going back to university for a year to catch up on stuff I've missed will re-invigorate me, as well as updating the skills and paper qualifications. I'm really enthusiastic about it - to the extent that losing the job now looks like a good thing.

[Cort Haus]

Now, despite the fact that I know nothing about programming beyond:
10 Print 'HC is a knob'
20 GoTo 10

then I was under the impression that Java is relied on by loads of mobile phone programs, and can only see this market expanding, so would have thought that was the best area to move into right now. Good luck CH, and don't forget to blow your student grant on booze within the first week.

Ah, student grants. Them were the days.

It's more than likely that my former employer will want me back now and again on a consultancy basis to do some of the things they thought they didn't want any more but that they actually really need. So a bit of that at £750 a day won't do any harm.

[Fve Crathva]

Both languages are horrible: C++ is too low-level for high-level programming and too high-level for low-level programming, and Java is just a crappy language with crappy libraries. But C++ is a million times more fun to use than Java.

SP

[Provost Harrison]

Hey man, I used to do 6502 assembler...but that was a bloody long time ago - I was still a kid.

And nowadays I just do a bit of ABAP when I have the time

[Asher]

I wouldn't get hung up on the C++/Java split in the courses. It really doesn't matter what you take in school.

Learning Java and/or C++ makes it fairly easy to learn the other. C++ is more difficult due to the low-level nature, though.

[BlackCat]

BC, I did COBOL, Pascal, Fortran and 6502 assembler. :-/ The university mainframe (a Harris) still had a punched card reader

Ahh, memory lane :snif: My assembler was Z80/8080 and we also had punchcards on an IBM mainframe. Worst part was that several hundred students used the same writers wich meant that the ink tape (?) quickly was used - punch cards without text is a ***** if you happens to drop them on the floor

In pre-Windows days I wrote stuff in Turbo Basic, but generally, getting chances with newer languages and technologies through work haven't been very fruitful. In one place I got to learn Powerbuilder and two Multimedia languages (including Director) which have since have died . The next place had two proprietary languages which I learned - for user interfaces and batch processing - but were no use anywhere else. I learned C off my own bat in the 90's, but never did much with it commercially.

Ouch, that is bad luck. My first job was at a company that made their own HW (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regnecentralen) starting with Pascal on a CP/M system - after that it has been standard languages and OS'es, so transitions to C, C++, PHP, java etc has been done through work.

I've got a bit jaded as I've got older, but going back to university for a year to catch up on stuff I've missed will re-invigorate me, as well as updating the skills and paper qualifications. I'm really enthusiastic about it - to the extent that losing the job now looks like a good thing.

Quite understand this - if I hadn't been reeducated constantly through work, I would have found new places or gone back to school.

Only problem would have been the all night partying/drinking on regular basis - I'm not sure I can do that today

Good luck with your study.