C++ in 2025 – Is It Still Worth Learning for Modern Development?

[James78989]

C++ has been around for decades, and yet it continues to evolve with standards like C++20 and C++23 pushing the language further into modern development territory. But with so many new languages and frameworks in the spotlight — Rust, Go, Swift, etc. — it raises the question: Is C++ still worth learning or focusing on in 2025?


Some key points I’m curious about:

• How relevant is C++ in today's job market?
• Is it still the go-to for systems programming, game development, or embedded systems?
• Have modern features like smart pointers, concepts, and coroutines truly made it more beginner-friendly?
• For someone starting now, would you recommend C++ as a primary language, or more as a secondary one?

I’d love to hear from experienced developers as well as newcomers. How do you see C++ fitting into your current or future projects?


Let’s discuss!

 

[IRstuff]

I think you should know it as a programmer, but concentrating on it possibly limits your marketability as a programmer. Used to know a programmer that thought C was wussy and that only programming in assembly was "true" programming. Today, coding efficiency tends to be more about overall speed to application completion, rather than code density, especially if the coding package already can access tested and robust code, compared to writing C or C++ code from scratch. Even if you were to be a C coder, would you really eschew already tested and widely used libraries of code modules? Unless you are an absolute whiz at coding in C/C++, I'd think that your overall coding efficiency would be less than if you were to use another language. There used to be, and possibly still is, a place for code density, such as in small microcontrollers that have limited storage.

That said, there might be a place for someone who knows these "ancient" languages; there's still a place for COBOL programmers/debuggers/maintainers, after all.