
Ask HN: Requesting a reality check with C++ as a career choice - servlate
Hi HN,<p>Every time there is a topic about C++, all its warts show up, and it makes me wonder if devoting time to mastering it is fool&#x27;s gold.<p>I know that there is a bias, the negatives are spoken about more than the positives, but I wanted to know from engineers who use C++ everyday, how do all these warts really affect your day to day work? Are they making you want to jump ship to a different tech stack?<p>I can understand, in a general sense, that feature creep, compile times, and everyone using a different subset of C++ features etc are real problems for any language, but practically, how much has it affected you?<p>Currently, I&#x27;m not using C++ professionally, so I&#x27;m trying to gauge the amount disconnect in real world C++ usage and armchair language wars.<p>Thank you!
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jmnicolas
This would be a valid question (imho) for a hobby language but if it's about
your career your only question about a programming language should be 'is it a
desirable skill for an employer'.

A programming language is just a tool it doesn't define you as a human being.

Some are more convenient than others but at the end of the day the goal is to
get paid not enjoy yourself : this is why it's called work and not leisure.

I'm not trying to be condescending here, I think you're not asking the good
question. 5 years from now* you probably won't care about your current
programming language, but more about your pay, colleagues, work hours and
proximity to your home.

* this is HN so there's a big chance we're going to find someone that work in Cobol since 1982 and still love it like the first day ;-)

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taway_1212
This is not entirely true. There are some low-level programmers who say they
would gouge their eyes out if they were to work in a typical web dev
environment (I'm sure there are also opposite examples). So: personal
preferences matter to at least some people.

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jmnicolas
Honestly I'd fight like a cornered animal before taking any JavaScript or PHP
job ... but I'd take it if it's either very well compensated or my only
choice.

And I'm 100% sure that after 6 months working with it Stockholm syndrome would
kick-in and I'd be happy with it ;-)

