Expert: Zlatko - 9/13/2010

Question
Well, I am new to experts.com and to C++ programming too.

To get straight to the point, I wish to ask how C++ is helpful or rather a powerful programming language over others, say for example Java.

Thank you and God bless you!!

Answer
Hello Dominic

It is debatable whether C++ is more powerful than another programming language. It depends on what you mean by powerful. Certainly in speed, C++ tends to be faster than Java because C++ is compiled and Java is interpreted byte code. Even so, some people say that Java is catching up to C++. Java is not recommended for real time programming because of its speed and unpredictable garbage collection. C++ is good for real time programming.

C++ has the power to directly access memory locations in the machine and that may be useful in some situations like embedded systems and operating system kernel programming. In most other situations, like programming desktop applications, the C++ pointers are equivalent to Java references.

Certainly, any algorithm which can be expressed in one language can be expressed in the other.

Java has the advantage of a large amount of libraries for Graphical User Interface (GUI) programming, but C++ does not. To do GUI programming in C++ you need a GUI library built for the operating system. Such libraries are Qt for Windows, MAC, and Linux, or X-Windows for Linux/Unix or the Microsoft Windows SDK.

So, your simple question does not have a simple answer but I hope my answer helps a bit.

Best regards
Zlatko