I've just enrolled in a certificate program for computer programming at a community college. Structured and Object oriented programming in C and C++ are covered in separate classes. I plan on taking a course in Assembly language while I'm at it.
But I'm wondering, with nano technology comming, where will this leave C and C++ and Assembly language ?
Will nanotechnology processors support these languages ?
The assembly will likely change (although it's unlikely that backward compatibility will be broken).
But C/C++ are higher level, so they can be compiled to any assembly, so they can work on any and all future architectures as long as a compiler for that architecture becomes available.
There isn't one assembly language. Every different machine has its own instruction set, which defines its own assembly language. Compiled languages such as C++ can be used for anything as long as there's an available compiler, since compilation is translation to machine code. Of course, different pieces of hardware will present limitations that must be dealt with, such as memory, which will determine which C++ features are appropriate and which features shouldn't be used.
I don´t want to harrass You, EEVIAC, but we already have nano technology processors^^...
If You are talking about Quantum Processors, Single electron Transistor CPUs or Optical CPUs (Carbon, and so on)... I totally agree with Disch...
I am not sure why the languages shall change, neither why assemblie langauages should change significantly, because we are keeping the greater network structure of the cpu circuits (they will only be smaller)...
What may cause the need to rethink stuff, could be the possibility for forthcoming technologies, which can compute with more than 2 states (0,1)... But those, in mine (not only mine^^) opinion, won´t break into the market, because our whole lifes are dependant on the "old style"... it needs to be really really impressive, great, successfull and much more to be a real threat to the binary computing system, because nobody would ever pay the money to replace world´s technology
If it is not cheap and economically outstanding, kick it;D...