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copied!<p><strong>Overview:</strong></p> <p>It is almost true that C++ is a superset of C, and your professor is correct in that there is no need to learn C separately. </p> <p>C++ adds the whole object oriented aspect, generic programming aspect, as well as having less strict rules (like variables needing to be declared at the top of each function). C++ does change the definition of some terms in C such as structs, although still in a superset way.</p> <p><strong>Examples of why it is not a strict superset:</strong></p> <p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%2B%2B" rel="noreferrer">This Wikipedia article</a> has a couple good examples of such a differences:</p> <blockquote> <p>One commonly encountered difference is that C allows implicit conversion from void* to other pointer types, but C++ does not. So, the following is valid C code:</p> <pre><code>int *i = malloc(sizeof(int) * 5); </code></pre> <p>... but to make it work in both C and C++ one would need to use an explicit cast:</p> <pre><code>int *i = (int *) malloc(sizeof(int) * 5) </code></pre> <p>Another common portability issue is that C++ defines many new keywords, such as new and class, that may be used as identifiers (e.g. variable names) in a C program.</p> </blockquote> <p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compatibility_of_C_and_C%2B%2B" rel="noreferrer">This wikipedia article</a> has further differences as well:</p> <blockquote> <p>C++ compilers prohibit goto from crossing an initialization, as in the following C99 code:</p> </blockquote> <pre><code> void fn(void) { goto flack; int i = 1; flack: ; } </code></pre> <p><strong>What should you learn first?</strong></p> <p>You should learn C++ first, not because learning C first will hurt you, not because you will have to unlearn anything (you won't), but because there is no benefit in learning C first. You will eventually learn just about everything about C anyway because it is more or less contained in C++.</p>

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