Visual C++ vs Visual C# , which is the best to learn? [closed]

Question

I've done my C++ classes and practices after which I started learning Visual C++ using book Ivor Horton's Visual C++. The problem is that I am unable to understand the language of this book and badly trying to understand the codes. I want to learn Visual C++ for Windows application development and making my future in that (also because I already know C++).

Some of my friends told me to switch to C# since it has many library function to create GUI etc and told me it's hard to code Windows applications in Visual C++.

Now in these holidays I am going to join classes, can you help me which language I should stick to, and which one will be easy?

From very beginning I want to learn Visual C++ and sometimes I think it's hard when I don't understand concept in reference books etc.

Any help will be very appreciated, thanks a lot for taking your precious time.

Answer 1

Visual C++ and Visual C# are not languages nor GUI frameworks; they are Integrated Development Environments - IDEs. This means they are text editors tailored to the task of development.

Visual C++ lets you code in C++, Visual C# lets you code in C#. Also, both let you create GUIs in a point-and-click manner.

Sounds like what you really want to do is create GUIs. In that case, without having further information, I recommend you go for C#. It is a much cleaner language than C++, it has fewer ways to shoot yourself in the foot, and it provides access to the immensely useful .NET framework.

C# features that C++ doesn't have:

• Fully automatic memory management
• Lambda functions¹
• Type inference¹
• Reflection
• Remoting
• Automatic serialization
• True entity types
• Properties
• Database integration via LINQ
• Convenient functional-style programming via LINQ
• No header files
• No undefined behavior
• Direct interoperability with many languages
• Compile once, run everywhere

¹ these features have been added to C++ in the C++11 standard.

C++ features that C# doesn't have

• Template metaprogramming
• Typedefs
• Zero-overhead principle
• Means to enforce const-correctness
• Mature compilers that produce extremely optimized code nowadays
• Much wider platform support