[pryogene]

Hay all,

My new years resolution is 1280x1024 (hahaha). Actually it's to learn a C based language such as C++ or Objective-C. Ideally, I'm looking for suggestions for learning resources. I've learnt a lot of my other languages from books and further practice, so books (especially those with kindle editions) would be best.

And anyone with experience in this sector - which C based language is most transferable? This is really to be a leg into uni, I have loads of programming experience, but I've always pussy footed around C unless it had Sharp in the name. C scares me. But time to learn. I'd love to be able to work on a variety of platforms with a single language (mono and c# are my go-to pair) that is as powerful as it is extensible.

Any help is really appreciated!
Merry Christmas DIC!

[Oler1s]

> Actually it's to learn a C based language

I find the term "C-based" to be curious. Either you want to learn C, or C++, or you don't want to learn either of those two languages. Any syntactical similarities to C are irrelevant.

> But time to learn. I'd love to be able to work on a variety of platforms with a single language

You should understand that while C and C++ are portable languages, there isn't much of a library and there is no standard platform. Want to walk through the filesystem? Platform specific. Create a GUI? Platform specific. Open up a socket? Platform specific. Multithread? Platform specific. Etc.

So make a decision as to whether you want to learn C, C++, or some other language.

[pryogene]

If I had to choose, it would be C++. It seems to be the defacto standard in the industry. Its certainly going to be the primary language at Uni.

So C++ it is!

[pryogene]

C++ Primer, 4th Edition has been recommended to me. Looks really good, it seems well thought out and nicely structured..
May be the one to buy.

[111027]

Actually, i would like to recommend you to start with C. I realize it might seem a strange thing to say, let alone do - i thought so as well - but my university opened my eyes on that this semester. C is a very, very good first language because of the following reasons:

1. It's a dead simple language - you get variables, loops, selections, functions, arrays and pointers. That's about it - less material to learn, more a chance to keep it to the concepts
2. It's portable - every modern computer system offers a C compiler. Even more, almost all embedded programs are C programs.
3. There is no large standard library . Now some might chastise me for saying this is a good thing, but it actually is. Not only it eliminates bloat and severely reduces the learning curve, it actually means you'll have to go trough all the traditional rites of passage programmers need to go to, and expose you to a lot of the basic concepts, such as null termination.

Just my two cents - hope you make a good decision.

[pryogene]

111027, on 26 December 2011 - 07:17 AM, said:

Actually, i would like to recommend you to start with C. I realize it might seem a strange thing to say, let alone do - i thought so as well - but my university opened my eyes on that this semester. C is a very, very good first language because of the following reasons:

1. It's a dead simple language - you get variables, loops, selections, functions, arrays and pointers. That's about it - less material to learn, more a chance to keep it to the concepts
2. It's portable - every modern computer system offers a C compiler. Even more, almost all embedded programs are C programs.
3. There is no large standard library . Now some might chastise me for saying this is a good thing, but it actually is. Not only it eliminates bloat and severely reduces the learning curve, it actually means you'll have to go trough all the traditional rites of passage programmers need to go to, and expose you to a lot of the basic concepts, such as null termination.

Just my two cents - hope you make a good decision.

Interestingly, a lot of people discourage that idea because of my background in C# and Java. The primer book was recommended because I know so many languages, that I need to drop back to basics to learn C++

My choice of Uni is big on C++... And python, actually, but I'll cross that hurdle later...

And learning curves are no issue, I'm a quick learner with a huge capacity for knowledge.

[111027]

You make your own choices, dude. Still, figure this: when learning how to program, learning a language is the least of your problems. There's a whole lot to cover:


- Structured programming
- Hardware basics
- Algorithm theory
- Data structures
- Discrete mathematics
- So many other things

Thus the Keep It Simple reply.

[tlhIn`toq]

We can help you by saying "First learn basic programming and the language of C#. Then take on assignments." Could someone here write this program for you? Sure. Could someone here map out all the processes you need to follow and do the Software Design part of this in the slim hope you could code it from there? Sure. But we don't volunteer to do the job that you're either getting paid for, or getting a grade for. You may want to read this.

For now, just work on the lessons. Do a self-teaching book from cover to cover. Then consider writing a program.

Don't try to create a useful working program to fit a need of yours (or a for-pay contract) as your introduction to coding project. When you are learning to code you don't know enough to code a program, let alone know how to engineer the architecture of a program. It would be like saying "I don't know how to read sheet music, or play an instrument. I think I'll write a 3 act opera as my first learning experience."

I don't say this to be mean. We've seen lots of new coders take this approach and we know it doesn't work. Trying to design your own programs before you understand the basics of the code language you've chosen just leads to problems, frustrations, and 'swiss-cheese' education (lots of holes).

---

Resources, references and suggestions for new programmers. - Updated Nov 2011

---

Spoiler

Quote

I already have a background in programming from this other software/technology/lanugage so I don't think I need to do tutorials

Here's how I look at doing tutorials even if one has a coding background that makes one think they don't need to do tutorials:

• If one's background really is enough to not need the tutorials, then they won't take long - So what's the harm?
  
• If the tutorials do take a while, then it might be time to re-think how much of one's old experience really applies to the new technology.
  
• There's no down-side. Every tutorial/series teaches something in a new way. Maybe you pick up a neat trick or a different approach to something that you already knew.

The stages of asking for homework help on a forum

Finding answers to specific problems:
Sometimes just knowing where to look can make all the difference. Google is your friend.
Search with either "C#" or "MSDN" as the first word: "MSDN Picturebox", "C# Custom Events", "MSDN timer" etc.
How to do a good search that will get you targeted answers.

Once you have that MSDN page that describes the function, you may not be familiar with out to actually get useful information from that page. There is a LOT of data there. So what is the important parts? Read this guide to reading the MSDN.

Don't think you are the first person to ask a question. Try a search on this site to see if someone has already brought up this problem. Also, as soon as you post your question go to the bottom of the updated page: You will see where the system has already analyzed your question and tried to find similar threads for the same question, so check those links out.

But honestly, just typing away and seeing what pops up in Intellisense is going to make your self-education take 20 years. You can learn by trying to reverse engineer the language through banging on the keyboard experimentation - or you can learn by doing the tutorials and following a good "How to learn C#" book. There are so many great "How do I build my first application" tutorials on the web... There are dozens of "Learn C# in 21 days", "My first C# program" type books at your local book seller or even public library.

Beginner:
C# Fundamentals: Development for absolute beginners
Build a Program Now! in Visual C# by Microsoft Press, ISBN 0-7356-2542-5 is a terrific book that has you build a Windows Forms application, a WPF app, a database application, your own web browser.

Martyr2's mega project ideas list is a great place to start on developmental projectst that you can learn from; rather than trying to make something complex like a game as a self-teaching tool {that never works for anyone}

Visual Studio Keyboard Shortcuts

D.I.C. C# Resource page Start here
Intro to C# online tutorial then here...
C# control structures then here.
MSDN Beginner Developer video series
MSDN video on OOP principals, making classes, constructors, accessors and method overloading
MSDN Top guideline violations, know what to avoid before you do it.
Design patterns as diagrams

I hate sending people to another site when we have such good tutorials here, but this series shouldn't be overlooked.
Programming OOP in C# - Part 1
Programming OOP in C# - Part 2
Programming OOP in C# - Part 3
Programming OOP in C# - Part 4
Programming OOP in C# - Part 5

Writing a text file is always one of the first things people want to do, in order to store data like high-scores, preferences and so on.
Writing a text file tutorial.
Reading a text file tutorial.

Have you seen the 500+ MSDN Code Samples? They spent a lot of time creating samples and demos. It seems a shame to not use them.

Intermediate:
The tutorials below walk through making an application including inheritance, custom events and custom controls, object serialization and more.
Bulding an application - Part 1
Building an application - Part 2
Quick and easy custom events
Separating data from GUI - PLUS - serializing the data to XML
WPF version (WPF-MVVM data binding)
Passing values between forms/classes
Decouple your multi-threaded work from the GUI so forms don't hang

Working with environmental variables
'Why do we use delegates?' thread
And everyone always wants to connect to a database, right out of the gate so Database tutorials right here on DIC

C# Cookbooks
Are a great place to get good code, broken down by need, written by coding professionals. You can use the code as-is, but take the time to actually study it. These professionals write in a certain style for a reason developed by years of experience and heartache.

Everyone:
Debugging tutorial
Debugging tips
Debugging in detail
Great debugging tips
It still doesn't work, article

I urge you to work through the C# learning series here on DIC, and to work a self-teaching book from cover to cover before you even think about designing your own applications.
Microsoft Visual Studio Tips, 251 ways to improve your productivity, Microsoft press, ISBN 0-7356-2640-5 Has many, many great, real-world tips that I use all the time.

These are just good every-day references to put in your bookmarks.
MSDN C# Developers Center with tutorials
Welcome to Visual Studio
Free editions of Visual Studio 2010

Let me also throw in a couple tips:

• You have to program as if everything breaks, nothing works, the cyberworld is not perfect, the attached hardware is flakey, the network is slow and unreliable, the harddrive is about to fail, every method will return an error and every user will do their best to break your software. Confirm everything. Range check every value. Make no assumptions or presumptions.
  
  
• Take the extra 3 seconds to rename your controls each time you drag them onto a form. The default names of button1, button2... button54 aren't very helpful. If you rename them right away to something like btnOk, btnCancel, btnSend etc. it helps tremendously when you make the methods for them because they are named after the button by the designer.btnSend_Click(object sender, eventargs e) is a lot easier to maintain than button1_click(object sender, eventargs e)
  
  
• You aren't paying for variable names by the byte. So instead of variables names of a, b, c go ahead and use meaningful names like Index, TimeOut, Row, Column and so on. You should avoid 'T' for the timer. Amongst other things 'T' is commonly used throughout C# for Type and this will lead to problems. There are naming guidelines you should follow so your code confirms to industry standards. It makes life much easier on everyone around you, including those of us here to help. If you start using the standards from the beginning you don't have to retrain yourself later.
  
  
• Try to avoid having work actually take place in GUI control event handlers. It is usually better to have the GUI handler call other methods so those methods can be reused and make the code more readible.
  
  Spoiler

  
  

  btnSave(object sender, eventargs e)
  {
      SavePreferences();
  }
  
  SaveMenuItem(object sender, eventargs e)
  {
      SavePreferences();
  }
  
  SaveContextMenu(object sender, eventargs e)
  {
      SavePreferences();
  }
  
  FormMain_Closing(object sender, eventargs e)
  {
      if (IsDirty) SavePreferences();
  }
  

  
  
  
• I strongly suggest installing VMware or some other virtualization technology on your development PC so you can create a couple virtual computers for testing. This would allow you to debug and test inside: WinXP32, XP64, Vista, Win7x32, Win7x64... etc. without having to actually have 5 physical PC's. Visual Studio will let you send the debug directly into one of these virtual machines so you can watch it operate, check its variables, see the crashes and so on just as if it were debugging on your real machine.
  
  
• This can't be stressed enough in today's world of cell phone messaging:
  Don't use txt/sms/leet/T9 speak like: u no, u r, dnt, wut i m do-n, coz, al gud, b4, ny1, and so on like this guy:
  
  dis not b d'hood dawg... You are sitting at a real keyboard with a real monitor, not a cell phone. You are not here texting your high school posse to come to your kegger after their shift at Taco Bell. You are here asking for help from senior coding professionals who graciously donate their valuable time to helping the next generation of coders with their chosen craft. Please try to show them, yourself and the industry some respect by writing at least at an eighth grade level. (IE: English not ebonics or SMS, real words, punctuation and so on). If you can't take your own problem/question seriously enough to write like an adult, then why would you expect anyone else to take it seriously?
  
  When you write a post you are presenting yourself. Your writing style is all you have to show others who you are and what you stand for. When I see posts filled with lack of capitalization, SMS text like 'Urself', lack of punctuation and so on; what I see is someone who just doesn't care to make even an eighth grade presentation of themselves. I also see that you feel we are not worth the effort. Posts that look like this show that you don't feel the person you are talking to is worth speaking to as an adult. If you show this level of contempt or apathy towards someone you are asking for help how can you expect to be taken seriously or expect to receive that expert's fullest attention and time to help you?

[pryogene]

I may need to rephrase. I've been programming for 6 years, I understand the fundamentals and I'm proficient in a variety of languages. I've worked professionally using C# with Mono and .NET for a number of clients over the past 2 years, but what I'd like to do is learn C++ to give me a broader reach and to help me when It comes to uni - so I'm not presented with a language i know nothing about.

I'm certainly not a beginner programmer, but C++ is new to me and so I'd like to learn it before hitting up tutorial sites and building on the knowledge. Else I'd have hit the tutorial section way before now. But i like to learn from books as it's where most of mu knowledge has come from, tutorials are where i turn afterwards to help enforce what the book has taught me.

so that's why i was asking for book suggestions.

Edit - I start uni next year

This post has been edited by pryogene: 26 December 2011 - 10:41 AM

[111027]

Well, then. If you insist.


http://www.amazon.co...r/dp/0789721449
http://www.amazon.co...l/dp/0471606979

Books for experienced programmers, such as yourself. Have a blast.

[tlhIn`toq]

9 posts later and we finally get to the actual question:

"Can you recommend some good C++ self-teaching books?"

No offense, but while you're working on C++ you should also work on how to communicate your needs and thoughts. If I had to go through that type of process with you at work for everything we collaborated on I'd be asking for re-assignment to a different team.

[macosxnerd101]

We do have a pinned C++ Books resource thread in the C++ Programmers forum you may find helpful.

[pryogene]

111027, on 26 December 2011 - 10:48 AM, said:

Well, then. If you insist.


http://www.amazon.co...r/dp/0789721449
http://www.amazon.co...l/dp/0471606979

Books for experienced programmers, such as yourself. Have a blast.

Sarcasm isn't appreciated. I'm completely new to C++, or did you miss that fact? I'm completely aware that i need to start from basic for Cpp, but you and your constant synicism seem to have overlooked that. Stop flaming me, please.

Toq: that question was clear, people were spending more tome flaming me and assuming i was a noob than actually answering, very unlike the usual DIC bunch I made it clear enough that i had experience in other languages but wanted to start new, and i also expressed clearly that C is not a good place for me to start as that would be going backwards, as many an informed person has told me.

Macosxnerd: Thanks, that's the first useful answer that hasn't involved flaming me. Much appreciated. Any other suggestions from anyone would be appreciated, but hold the abuse?

[Oler1s]

Shortlist of books that C++ programmers pretty much go through. C++ Primer by Lippman isn't on the list, but it should be at the top with Accelerated C++.

AC++ is a good counterpart to the Primer book. It's hard to understand how idiomatic C++ is constructed if you just see a list of features. But AC++ is not a reference book, so you'll need something like Primer to look up.

[jon.kiparsky]

I've looked at Lippman - found it pretty useless, though I can see how the beginner might find it handy.

I would suggest learning straight C through Kernighan and Richie, then look at Stroustrop on C++ once you're comfortable writing some moderately complex programs in straight C. Working through the standard DS&A stuff - write the basic data atructures and something to exercise them - would be a reasonable benchmark to tell you you're ready to move to C++.