With its object-oriented approach, C++ is much easier to use, and some people like the enormous number of libraries that are available. It is probably easier to manage programs in C++ than in C, too, especially when they can become extremely large and complicated, as games tend to do. It’s slightly...

C++ is an object-oriented successor to C. If you are unfamiliar with the concept of OOP, it simply means that the programs are built out of objects. Theoretically, using this type of programming allows you to create an application with libraries designed by yourself or others, piecing them together as...

There are so many books and so much documentation available for the C language that it could conceivably take an entire chapter to simply list them. With that in mind, you can look in discussion groups or online bookstores such as Barnes and Noble (www.bn.com) to look at the most popular of the many...

The syntax of the C language takes some time to get used to and might not be the best choice for beginning programmers. It does not lend itself to object-oriented techniques, which can be problematic for individuals who are used to object-oriented programming (OOP).

C is at its best when writing small and very fast programs. As was previously mentioned, it can be interfaced with assembly languages very easily. It is also very standardized, so platform changes are not nearly as noticeable in C when comparing it to other languages. Many aspects of the language are...

Dennis Ritchie created C in the 1970s. Its original purpose was for writing system-level programs such as operating systems, but at the same time, it was intended to be a language that anyone could use and learn. Before its introduction, operating systems were coded in assembly language, a very arduous...

If you are planning to write for a specific platform, you should check out the Web sites of the hardware manufacturers for that particular platform. For instance, for X86 machines, you should check out Intel and AMD, the two biggest producers of processors for PCs.

It is not portable in any way because it is designed for a single processor. It has been given such a bad name in programming circles that many are afraid of attempting to learn it. It also takes a little longer to program a sequence in assembly than in any of the high-level languages.

A programmer who is well versed in assembly can be a huge asset to a programming team. While most will use other languages such as C to do some of their programming, they will use the speed of assembly in the routines that need it. Thousands of games have used assembly to optimize their performance.

Assembly was the first computer language and is a representation of the actual instructions a computer processor runs. It has a very bad reputation that is hard to overcome. Many programmers feel that there aren’t enough benefits in using a language such as assembly. This line of thinking is becoming...