Learning basic algorithms - better C or C++? [closed]

Question

I'm studying fundamental algorithms (quicksort, mergesort, binary trees, etc..) and I'm going to re-code every algorithm by scratch to learn how they work. Should I code them in C or C++? I think with C++ I should use STL, in C everything should probably be longer

Is there a reason why I should pick one over another?

Answer 1

I've found more references that teach this stuff in C as opposed to C++, and the college course I took on Data Structures and Algorithms was taught in C, so I would recommend C on that basis.

The purpose is to learn these data structures and algorithms correctly. Hell, you could go learn the principles in Java or Python if you really wanted to... the choice of language isn't a critical decision since you're learning concepts at this stage rather than being tied to a specific implementation.

I would focus on finding a good resource that teaches you the basics in a language with which you are comfortable.

Answer 2

There is little difference between using C and using C++ in this context. The reason is that the differences between the two languages are not going to be very visible - a trivial implementation of an algorithm very rarely takes advantage of the features found in C++, rather, it works with the very basic foundations which are found in both C and C++.

Personally I would find using C much simpler because it simply works at lower level of abstraction. This means that the fundamental idea and inner working of the algorithm become more clear. A good example of this would be whether to use C-style array or STL container like std::vector. What benefits would std::vector give you in terms of learning about implementing an algorithm? Frankly, I can't name any.

This is not to say that in general you should implement algorithms in C or use some kind of "C-style". This is to say that in this case, when you want to implement algorithms to understand how they work, I argue that the best way to approach this is to use as basic and fundamental facilities possible - exactly those which C offers and perhaps even avoid the high-level concepts introduced by C++.

Answer 3

I think C++ is probably the way to go. I suggest starting simple and implement data structures and algorithms using simple ints as your data. Once you get that working, then using templates seems like the next logical step to me.

Answer 4

The problem with both c and c++ is that one has to dump all data structures by hand, and this is boring. Compiling is also frustrating. It is much better to use some language with repl and that has good support for printing datastructures (haskell, scheme, python. Haskell is better for some algorithms, but in-place sorting in it sucks and is quite long).

If you have to choose between c and c++, then c++ is better - it allows to avoid some boilerplate and better with abstractions.

Answer 5

Your question is confusing.

You say you plan to re-implement fundamental algorithms "from scratch". Then go on to say that if you go the C++ route, you "should" use the STL. Those are contradicting statements.

Assuming that you are going to start from scratch, it really doesn't matter what language you use since you wouldn't be using anything but the built in facilities of C and C++, and the superfluous facilities of the latter aren't necessary for your task.