C++ is a language that is widespread. As far as I am concerned, it is a pile of rubbish. All I had was agony from it and hell.
I took the AP Computer Science A course as my computer class in the year 2001-2002. At first, we had a teacher who, as it ended up, did not even know C++. He told us he knew basic FORTRAN. However, his complete lack of knowledge became obvious to me in two ways. First, he could never explain anything and referred to variables as "this guy" or "that guy." Second, whenever I or others proved him wrong on tests, he never gave back any points. The official reason was, brace yourself for a big laugh, the answer guide told him that it was not the correct answer. This is because he never made up any of his tests, he simply copied them from the book's teacher edition. This would also explain why he could never tell us why the answers were the ones on the answer guide. As a result, we learned nothing in the first semester of computer class. This teacher caused me a lot of mental trauma. Whenever I hear the words "white space," "pseudo-code," or "lots of comments, guys", I start to cry.
Then, at the beginning of the second semester, a new teacher replaced the fired and incompetent teacher. The official word for this was that the teacher resigned, but I am pretty sure the administration yielded to the herd of complaining students. Either way, the old teacher was gone. The new teacher ended up at first to be very good and cool, despite his lack of any teaching experience beforehand. In a few weeks time, we reviewed everything that we missed in the first semester due to His Incompetency. Even I knew everything. Then we came across yet another annoyance. It was studying for the AP Computer Exam and its retarded Marine Biology Case Study (MBCS). The MBCS is a program that simulates how fish move in water. I can say that it was the stupidest thing I have ever heard of. It made no sense and it was not realistic. So we wasted the last quarter of the school year doing this instead of learning anything useful or fun. Well, did do some fun things. We wasted most of the time in the class by chunking paper balls at each other. This was fun, but as people came up with bigger and bigger things to throw, more and more people were injured. Among the things thrown at me: a geometry book, a shoe, and even the whole 100+ page MBCS. There was a kid named Eric in our class whom everybody blamed for everything. To some extent this was true and it was to fun to blame all our troubles on Eric. One day the teacher was so fed up with him that he wanted a show of hands of those who wanted to kick Eric out of the class. Unanimously, Eric was gone for the day.
When the AP Test date came, it seemed that most of us were screwed. The test was from about 12 noon to about 4:30. The test consisted of multiple choice and a written hand coded part. I solved most of the multiple choice but the hand code part stumped me. So, instead of doing that part of the test for two hours, I made time pass by stealing the markers from the board (since I sat next to the teacher who noticed cleverly noticed my attention deficit at the back of the classroom before the start of the exam) and making faces at people who looked at me. About five people were completely stumped on the hand coding part and didn't even bother doing just like me. Also, there was a 20 minute break between the test itself and we went outside to play something. One of my friends got his shoe stuck up on the rain guard walkway cover by trying to kick a soccer ball (and missing of course). It was funny to see him wobble on one foot with the show stuck high above. I did end up helping him by giving him a boost to the walkway cover and he successfully got his shoe off. Unfortunatly, he scraped his arm and still has a scar. Of course this physical scar is nothing like the mental scar all of us have from that class.
Well, I thought that this would be the end to the MBCS and all the retarded C++ things. I was dead wrong. Instead, the teacher decided to give us a test and the final on the same material as the AP Test. In essence we were tested three times over the same stuff (AP Test, class test, class final). So the MBCS and all that stuff ended up being about 40% of our whole semester grade. Talk about proportionate.
Also, during the year I sent a letter to the inventor of C++, Bjarne Stroustrup. Here is my letter, unedited:
HI! My name is Andras and I am currently taking C++. I dont know if it is the incompetence of my teachers and peers OR that C++ sucks ass that I cannot get anything to work. I am quite glad that you nevermade too much money off of it (how i could tell? look on your website and your new balance shoes tell all, speaking of which you should never put your shoes on your desk). Also, your website sucks a lot, just like C++. Also, what use is there of C++? Yippie, I can concatenate strings and make arrays, that by the way I could do a whole lot easier in any other language. The thing that pisses me off the most is that the not all libraries come included in the compilers. So, if i want to use apstring or some other crap, I need to find the libraries and pray to God they work and dont screw over the other libraries. (Oddly enough JavaScript, a not hard language, fixes this by the singular data type: var. thats right! no more int, double, string, vector, or anything else). After studying C++ for almost a year (at an AP level, what ever that crap is worth), I can do nothing fancy: graphics or anything "cool." Well, nice talking to you, too bad you couldnt invent something more lame.
Here is his short response:
Thanks. I hope you feel better after having demonstrated your ignorance and bad manners.
Damn straight, I certainly feel a whole lot better. Notice how he never disputed the fact that he made no money from C++ and that C++ sucks. All he said was that I am ignorant. After all, I must be a complete idiot since it's not like I have made my own website or anything, oh wait, I did!
Well, here's my advice: Do not take C++ because it is useless and gives you more trouble than its worth, which happens to nothing. Also, do not take any (even seemingly fun or useful) languages (like HTML) in a school because they always have a way of making you hate it.
Update! I completely failed my Computer Science A AP Exam. I got a 1 out of 5. I guess that's what you get for drawing all over the test booklet. In the news of the strange, there were only two people out of the entire school who got a perfect 5. One of those fine young lads didn't even take our "advanced" course proving that this course was nothing but trash. I also burned my C++ notebook:
I am tired of getting hatemail from people who don't have a clue. If you think this essay/ramble/etc tries to be a technical documentation, then you obviously can't read. It's not a coincidence that the title is My C++ Experience and not C++ Sucks. If you misunderstood the intention of this page, please lighten up your life by playing at the Andkon Arcade (hehe, it's all Java).