As a recovering C# programmer, I'm getting back into C++ and really enjoying the new features of C++11/14. Still, there's a lot to know about the language, and I'd love to hear about what day-to-day C++ programmers stick to when developing software.
As someone who knows C# and C++ and has worked with both professionally; C# is a much better designed language than ANY version of C++. C/C++ isn't going anywhere, but you could do much worse than to have developed in C#.
I think these types of remarks are reminiscent of the 1980-1990s where people declared one language or framework more "1337" than another, however the ironic thing is that they often poked fun at C++ for being less "serious" than ASM or C.
I stopped caring about which language made me feel more hackery a long time ago, because it became apparent that I didn't envy people who could write better assembler than me, it is people who are more productive and produce really cool stuff.
Right now I'd happily give up everything I knew about C++ to become a AngularJS expert because that's where the money is, and that's somewhere I could be extremely productive. C++ is still in the royal family for high performance, but who is recruiting for that? Where is the exciting C++ development going on? When was the last time you ran across a C++ project that made you envious?
PS - In answer to your question: I always work in the version of C++ that the codebase is written in, or the latest for new projects. C++ has received too many incredible improvements to ignore later versions of the language.
That hurt me. To call the current technology of web pitiful these days is not fair I think. How it is changing communication in life is impossible to ignore.
I agree with the big trade off of "speed" and productivity ("speed" because, really? How many projects are there that speed is the number one factor and productivity number 2?).
It's more and more pitiful every year. Old standards do not go away, new ones pile upon layers and layers of the historical cruft. It is not going to ever get any better.
> How many projects are there that speed is the number one factor and productivity number 2?
The web stuff is abysmal in both dimensions. There is no way it can be anywhere near any high performance, and there is nothing that could help developers to be productive, because - see above.
Chrome, Firefox, OpenCV...
In response to your PS bit, has your build environment ever restricted which features you're enabled to use? Do you avoid certain parts of C++ due to needs of your project?
Overall, I really like both languages and have bounced back and forth quite a bit. I'd say they both have good and bad things, in different ways, and their overall purposes are different. I'd also say that people who compare the two languages aren't really comparing apples to apples. For the simple reason you cannot remove the .NET eco system from C#, but C++ does stand on its own. The .NET ecosystem is what provides for the majority of productivity and other gains that C# affords. That isn't a knock against either, but I just don't see them as equivalents. To me it is like comparing a race car to an every day driver, both will do the job of getting you to and from the store, your more likely to kill yourself or others in the race car and don't have all the built in conveniences, but both can get you to and from.
I only work on greenfield projects so I'm free to use what I want. So far I've only taken advantage of lambdas and atomics and some of the new threading stuff.
I think I've been reading too many snooty remarks about non-C++ languages, and the jab in my post probably shouldn't have been there.