The best way to learn?

Priapus · 16 Jul 2007 at 14:50

Well, I've saved the whole lot to Word. So, you're saying I should just start from the first tutorial and just read and take it all in before moving onto a complier and doing it?

Maybe read the tutorials over time or something?

Thank you for the help bud.

noob · 16 Jul 2007 at 15:04

Ice On Fire said:
Well, I've saved the whole lot to Word. So, you're saying I should just start from the first tutorial and just read and take it all in before moving onto a complier and doing it?

Everyone learns different. What I do is read the tutorial first, make sure I understand and then type the code into an IDE, you can use notepad if you want and just download a compiler on it's own. But if you use something like Visual C++ Express you can step through the code line by line this can you help you understand it better.

Shoseki · 16 Jul 2007 at 15:29

noob said:
Oh another open source zealot what a surprise. Why do you think people like John Carmack use Visual C++ not because he loves billy boy but because it's a good tool. And it's not as if he loves closed source because he's the one pushing OpenGL.

Oh look another Microsoft zealot what a surprise.

When you are in computing, and the first thing you always suggest is a Microsoft product, you're really in trouble...

Its a big wide world out there. I'd say Eclipse was a pretty good IDE, doesn't cost a penny and is easy to use.

Visual C++ is a beast of an IDE, chock full of features, and, I thought, might be a little complex for someone who is starting their first HelloWorld.cpp... but as Ice on Fire is clearly in the same ballpark as John Carmack, hell, lets use VC++...

noob · 16 Jul 2007 at 15:38

Shoseki said:
Oh look another Microsoft zealot what a surprise.

When you are in computing, and the first thing you always suggest is a Microsoft product, you're really in trouble...

When do I always suggest a Microsoft product? I even suggested Dev-C++ 5 which is free. I do think it's a good idea for him to at least check out Microsoft products because if he does think hmm I wouldn't mind doing this as a career he will most probably encounter them when he goes to a software house.

I'm not asking him to learn fully blown Windows apps here all I said was Visual C++ Express has some good features to aid your learning. In particular the step by step debugging and be able to watch variables, etc.

I don't care if it's Microsoft or not my attitude is choose the best for the solution if that happens to be a Microsoft product / language or some open source language / product choose that.

Shoseki said:
I started C++ using crappy Visual C++

Shoseki said:
Visual C++ is a beast of an IDE, chock full of features

The only thing I was addressing was the above we both know it's a good product. I can understand what you are saying about knowing the compiler, linker, etc. But the tutorials should go through that anyway. He will then realise you can compile your programs in whatever IDE you want or you can do it yourself using a command line.

Shoseki · 16 Jul 2007 at 18:49

noob said:
When do I always suggest a Microsoft product? I even suggested Dev-C++ 5 which is free. I do think it's a good idea for him to at least check out Microsoft products because if he does think hmm I wouldn't mind doing this as a career he will most probably encounter them when he goes to a software house.

I'm not asking him to learn fully blown Windows apps here all I said was Visual C++ Express has some good features to aid your learning. In particular the step by step debugging and be able to watch variables, etc.

I don't care if it's Microsoft or not my attitude is choose the best for the solution if that happens to be a Microsoft product / language or some open source language / product choose that.

The only thing I was addressing was the above we both know it's a good product. I can understand what you are saying about knowing the compiler, linker, etc. But the tutorials should go through that anyway. He will then realise you can compile your programs in whatever IDE you want or you can do it yourself using a command line.

Heheh you quoting me does make me look like a hypocrit ^^ but what I was getting at was that it was a really bad move. I wish I hadn't learnt c++ using VC++.

I learnt Basic, QBasic and Java by using the command line. Compiling with Java was my first step into the big non-interpreted world (well, not really but hey you know what I mean - the compiler step). If c++ can be almost as simple, why go all the way to using a massive IDE, its far too over the top for a couple of simple tutorials :S

Mindriot · 16 Jul 2007 at 22:50

I agree, i learned C using the linux command line, and it gave me a decent understanding of how the process works. This is fine for "procedural" (ie not object orientated like C++, C#, java) but if you want to build a windows interface there is nothing easier than dragging a button into the design window, having the IDE write the basic skeleton code for you just to fill in the gaps.

To the OP: if you are starting c++ from scratch (ie haven't learnt C before) then i would recommend ignoring the interface stuff from the start and get into learning the all-important syntax. If you download M$ visual C++ Express 2005 then make sure you start your learning with console projets initially. In fact it might be worth learning C to start with as C++ is just an extension and quite a lot of the commands are the same (flow control, conditional statements and whatnot)

noob · 16 Jul 2007 at 23:49

Mindriot said:
worth learning C to start with as C++ is just an extension and quite a lot of the commands are the same (flow control, conditional statements and whatnot)

I think it would be better learning C++ first because he will starting thinking the 'object oriented' way. I think to get out of the 'procedural' mindset can be quite difficult, well it was for me.

Priapus · 17 Jul 2007 at 07:47

Morning guys.

Well, I have done a little bit of C++. I will be reading up tonight on it and trying a few things. So I must rather try the free compiler you suggested, first then move onto something else?

Many thankS!

P.S: This is what I'd like to do a bit later in life: Software designer ect.

Noodles · 17 Jul 2007 at 19:46

Ice On Fire said:
Morning guys.

Well, I have done a little bit of C++. I will be reading up tonight on it and trying a few things. So I must rather try the free compiler you suggested, first then move onto something else?

Many thankS!

P.S: This is what I'd like to do a bit later in life: Software designer ect.

If I was you, I would first have a think about what kind of software you think you might want to develop; this will help dictate what you might want to learn.

I have been a software developer for over 10 years, must have that doing desktop apps, with only the last few doing web-apps. Personally if I was starting again, I would concentrate on web-focused languages. The future is certainly heading web-wards. Many apps that were thought purely the domain of the desktop are moving to the web - for example Google Spreadsheet.

The other big-area will be software for mobile-devices.

The desktop, will be left with just niche applications and things that demand the high performance (e.g. 3D gaming).

Priapus · 18 Jul 2007 at 08:01

Hi.

Well I would like to do both idealy really.
But I don't have net access at home where I will be doing this so making software for web at home and not being able to test it then and there will be hard enough.

Noodles · 18 Jul 2007 at 08:04

Ice On Fire said:
Hi.

Well I would like to do both ideally really.
But I don't have net access at home where I will be doing this so making software for web at home and not being able to test it then and there will be hard enough.

You don't need web access to test websites. You can run everything you need to test web-apps on your own PC.

Priapus · 18 Jul 2007 at 08:22

Oh okay then, that sounds good. Would it benifit me to learn the C++ language first, then decide what sort of apps to learn?

Also, this DevC++ complier I have downloaded, is it okay for me to use and begin with?

Thank you for the help!

Robert.

Priapus · 19 Jul 2007 at 07:33

Well, I started last night by using notepad then compiling it with DevC++. Pretty cool actually. I wrote a small program that would repeat a number that the user inputed. The code was:

#include <iostream>

using namespace std;

int main()
{
int number;

Cout<< "Please enter a number:";
cin>> number;
cin.ignore();
cout<<"You entered: "<<number<<"\n"
cin.get();
}

Not too sure if I made any mistakes, but I am getting there!

Noodles · 19 Jul 2007 at 07:55

Ice On Fire said:
Oh okay then, that sounds good. Would it benifit me to learn the C++ language first, then decide what sort of apps to learn?

The biggest benefit is to learn any programming language. So if you are set on C++ then there is no great problem.

It just wouldn't be the start I would choose. I would go for something 'simpler' so that you can be more productive straight from the off. I would think the biggest risk is you learn something 'complicated' (e.g. C++) never do anything productive with it and then get bored and give up.

Also read about programming ...

http://www.paulgraham.com/articles.html
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/Archive.html

read everything at those two and you will be onto a good start.

Priapus · 19 Jul 2007 at 08:16

Thanks for all the help, Noodles!

Inquisitor · 19 Jul 2007 at 11:14

I'd agree with noodles here. A simple language would probably be better for a beginner. Something like Python, perhaps.

azteched · 19 Jul 2007 at 13:03

Python and C++ are a good combination actually. I've been writing a computationally intensive back-end in C++, and stuck a simple GUI on top of it in Python.

As for gcc / command line vs. MS VC++, both are good compilers now, supporting nearly all of the C++ standard. Using an IDE makes it easier to start learning the language, and not the environment. Of course you can use an IDE with gcc, CodeBlocks looks good (gonna try it on new system).

Chrisss · 19 Jul 2007 at 14:06

Now that he's started he may as well stick with c++.

Dev-C++ is pretty good, but jedit and codeblocks are also work checking out.

Haircut · 19 Jul 2007 at 15:57

Chrisss said:
Now that he's started he may as well stick with c++.

I completely disagree. It looks like he wants to make applications (probably with a GUI) and C++ is not really suitable for that, especially for a beginner.
If he wanted to write device drivers then C++ would be great, but I don't think that's what his aim is.

My advice would be to start on a language such as C# or Java. The C++ knowledge you have will enable you to pick up the syntax pretty quickly and either of those languages are much more suitable for what you want.

Priapus · 19 Jul 2007 at 16:24

Hi guys,

Yes, my aim is to make applications for Windows with a GUI as well. I was using Visual Basic 2005 Express Edition. But to find tutorials on more then what MS give you is very hard to do.

So, with that in mind, which way do I go? I like C++ and can actually understand and read it easily enough. It's not hard at all. As in one night of studing, I can make a small CMD program. And understand how it works.

However I would like to make full applications for Windows really.

Unless I must rather look at web page designs?

Any advice guys?

Thank you very much