C# vs C++

[apomb]

I am curious as to the opinions of my compsci peers in the matter of C# vs. C++ in an electrical/electronics engineering post-secondary program.

Currently, my experience has been that C++ is more conducive to electrical/electronics engineering students than C# and C is even more suitable.

Am I wrong? Is there no practical difference?

[Tony]

It would not be practical to run a full .Net framework on embedded devices.

[apomb]

Thats what I thought!

I'm going to talk to the coordinators.

People obviously dont think before they switch to a "new shiny" programming language in a field that does not require .NET functionality.

[jbking]

To my mind, one could create various contrived examples where any of C, C++ or C# are reasonable languages to use within an EE program. Do you want examples for each?

[apomb]

Well, to be honest, EE students get the same introduction to programming as CE students, which, to me is just irresponsible and lazy on the coordinators behalf.

I could guess that cellphones and the like would be a platform on which C# might be utilized, but when working with embedded control, C# is impractical.

[Tony]

If .Net is the only thing the students know, eventually they'd have to design new hardware that runs .Net natively! We'll call it... .NetISC

Though seriously, there's quite a bit of overlap among all of the fields. Us, CS students (not even CE) also get to play with logic gates and CPU architecture. So C# does have some use in EE (and it might help students get dev (non-strictly-EE) jobs).

[wtd]

As previously hinted at, neither are ideal. C seems the way to go in this case, or depending on the platform in use, one could get all wacky with Forth.

[jbking]

I could picture in an initial programming couse using C# as a first language. Is it ideal? No, but then I suspect many people will differ on what should a student's first programming language be.

[wtd]

C# is about as far from ideal as I can imagine for the purpose of being an introductory programming language. It'd be about tied with Java, and C++ would be somewhat worse.

[apomb]

I guess its not a matter of it being an introductory language to learn programming, exactly, but i absolutely understand where you're comming from.

As a former CE student, I had no problem coming to this school and starting out with C++, but I'm sure there were others with no programming background who were completely thrown off. And I'm afraid this will throw new people even further off, since its not even relevant to the program as a whole, while at least C++ has _some_ EE applications.