How To Forget C++

The entire digital world stands on the shoulders of a single C library that some guy wrote in his basement in 1998. Every streaming service, every video call, every cat video – all powered by FFmpeg, a tool held together with duct tape and caffeine. The best part? Most companies making millions from video content have no idea their empire rests on this Jenga tower of open-source code. If the three developers who actually understand the codebase ever decided to take a vacation simultaneously, Netflix would just be a spinning loading icon.

The conspiracy theorist's guide to programming languages. While everyone's worried about memory leaks, the real threat is corporate control. C remains the last bastion of freedom in a world where tech giants puppeteer our code. Rust? A Google puppet. JavaScript? FAANG's playground. Meanwhile, C sits there with its pointer arithmetic and segfaults saying "at least I'll let you shoot yourself in the foot with complete freedom ." The tinfoil hat comes with every compiler installation.

Python cruising along, feeling smug and waving at everyone... until C++ shows up with a tow truck. Sure, Python's easy to drive and looks flashy, but when performance matters, you're getting towed by compiled languages. That Ferrari isn't going anywhere fast with its interpreted engine. Speed limits exist for a reason, I guess.

Rejecting modern OOP encapsulation with its fancy "getters and setters" in favor of the raw, chaotic energy of old-school BASIC's "peekers and pokers" - where memory manipulation was done with bare hands and a complete disregard for safety. Like choosing to fix your server with a hammer instead of proper tools because "that's how grandpa did it."

Dinner conversation takes a nerdy turn when someone asks for salt and the programmer at the table immediately needs to know the parameter passing method. Just another day of being unable to turn off the code brain. The rest of the family has learned to specify their variable scoping before requesting condiments.

If programming languages were weapons of choice, this is what we'd all be carrying. C++ is basically that Swiss Army knife with 500 functions you'll never use but can't throw away. JavaScript? Those kitchen scissors that somehow cut everything except what you actually need them for. Python gets the chainsaw because it chops through problems with brute simplicity (until you hit a threading issue). Meanwhile, Assembly programmers are performing surgery with precision scalpels because they're controlling every single byte like the control freaks they are. And then there's Visual Basic... literally just a spoon. Not even a sharp spoon. The kind of tool you give to the intern who can't be trusted with anything dangerous. The real joke? We're all still getting paid to use these ridiculous tools to build things that somehow run the entire world. Sleep tight!