CppCon 2015: Kate Gregory “Stop Teaching C"

Why HN readers recommended it

HN people cite it constantly in C versus C++ debates as the case for teaching modern C++ idioms rather than C first.

This is a summary from the source dataset, not an endorsement by Hacker News or the video creator.

Video & recommendation details

Creator / channel

CppCon

Topic

teaching c++

Format

talk

Level

intermediate

HN recommenders in dataset

7

HN mentions in dataset

18

Recommendation years in dataset

2016–2025

These counts and years describe the included Hacker News records; they are not YouTube views or the video’s publication date.

From the original HN conversations

Excerpts from the recorded comments. Follow each source for the full comment and surrounding discussion.

• > It's as if you had to be there from the start to have a full image of how the language grew and truly understand the interplay between all the "features", otherwise it's too late to become an expert, and in some cases even too …

• I've been spending a few days going through talks from last years cppcon[1]. They're all good, but they've all left me with a strong desire for a strongly opinionated, there-is-no-past-only-the-future introduction to C++14 (and incidentally, C11). I've added a few of those talks I've watched …

• If what you need is C++ (which IMNSHO it is not) then starting with C is a bad idea. Here's Kate Gregory's talk, you should definitely listen to her even if you think I'm an idiot because she actually teaches people C++ and I (thankfully) …