[Unfinished] "counter-based loops" tutorial available

A

Alf P. Steinbach

I have to shop Christmas gifts (and clean up... ;-)) before leaving
on Christmas holiday tomorrow, where I'll effectively be without a
network connection until January 6th, so I just posted what I have so
far -- which perhaps you'll find interesting!

This is the third but unfinished part of what hopefully will become a
technically _correct_ C++ newbie tutorial.

<url: http://home.no.net/dubjai/win32cpptut/w32cpptut_01_03.doc>.

Comments & criticism welcome (post here, please, don't mail).

I'll look at those comments in January -- or perhaps this evening.
 
I

Ioannis Vranos

Alf said:
I have to shop Christmas gifts (and clean up... ;-)) before leaving
on Christmas holiday tomorrow, where I'll effectively be without a
network connection until January 6th, so I just posted what I have so
far -- which perhaps you'll find interesting!

This is the third but unfinished part of what hopefully will become a
technically _correct_ C++ newbie tutorial.

<url: http://home.no.net/dubjai/win32cpptut/w32cpptut_01_03.doc>.

Comments & criticism welcome (post here, please, don't mail).

I'll look at those comments in January -- or perhaps this evening.


That is a nice effort and my main comment is why call it win32 in the
first place.


Apart from this, I think that a tutorial aimed for complete beginners
should be as simple as possible, while I think your approach is very
complex for a beginner.


I think you should not try to explain everything for a specific feature
altogether, but introduce simple things for each feature at first, and
then at a second "pass" introduce the more advanced concepts.



In any case, making the tutorial Win32 specific means it is not ISO C++
specific.
 
S

Sharad Kala

Alf P. Steinbach said:
I have to shop Christmas gifts (and clean up... ;-)) before leaving
on Christmas holiday tomorrow, where I'll effectively be without a
network connection until January 6th, so I just posted what I have so
far -- which perhaps you'll find interesting!

This is the third but unfinished part of what hopefully will become a
technically _correct_ C++ newbie tutorial.

<url: http://home.no.net/dubjai/win32cpptut/w32cpptut_01_03.doc>.

Comments & criticism welcome (post here, please, don't mail).

I skimmed through the tutorial and overall it looks good to me.
Some points though
- You mention Ken Thompson to be creator of C. That's Dennis Ritchie
actually.
- I haven't read the first lesson of your series but have you introduced the
term UB and what it means ? Also it may be a good idea to tell as to what
causes the loop to reach UB (probably in a footnote).
- Do you intend to introduce while/do-while too ? May be just in a couple of
paragraphs.
- I wish the tutorial wasn't targeted only for a Windows user. Else you
could add a few lines for Unix users too wherever you mention Windows stuff.

Sharad
 
A

Alf P. Steinbach

* Ioannis Vranos:
That is a nice effort
Thanks.


and my main comment is why call it win32 in the
first place.

Because the things a tutorial addresses such as tool usage, example
selection and so on are all system-specific.


Apart from this, I think that a tutorial aimed for complete beginners
should be as simple as possible, while I think your approach is very
complex for a beginner.

Perhaps it could be presented in some other way. However the issues
addressed are, I believe, those that a beginner has to struggle with.


I think you should not try to explain everything for a specific feature
altogether, but introduce simple things for each feature at first, and
then at a second "pass" introduce the more advanced concepts.

That's the idea, yes.


In any case, making the tutorial Win32 specific means it is not ISO C++
specific.

?

I'll check any explanation of that in January... ;-)

Have a Merry Christmas!
 
A

Alf P. Steinbach

* Sharad Kala:
I skimmed through the tutorial and overall it looks good to me.
Some points though
- You mention Ken Thompson to be creator of C. That's Dennis Ritchie
actually.

Thank you.

I always confuse timelines. In _this_ timeline Dennis Ritchie was the
one, yes, building on the B language that Ken made. Grumble...

- I haven't read the first lesson of your series but have you introduced the
term UB and what it means ?
Yes.


Also it may be a good idea to tell as to what causes the loop to
reach UB (probably in a footnote).

I think it would be too much, especially in an HTML version.

- Do you intend to introduce while/do-while too ? May be just in a couple of
paragraphs.

Yes -- hopefully I'll get to that.

- I wish the tutorial wasn't targeted only for a Windows user. Else you
could add a few lines for Unix users too wherever you mention Windows stuff.

Most of the tool usage stuff is very Windows-specific, but so far the
C++ code has been pure Standard.

I don't know how well that will hold up.

Cross-platform solutions exist for most things but those solutions that
are cross-platform are also typically very large and complex, and one
main point of using C++ is to do platform-specific things, which I feel
should be illustrated.


Have a Merry Christmas!
 
I

Ioannis Vranos

Alf said:
Because the things a tutorial addresses such as tool usage, example
selection and so on are all system-specific.


It should not cover tool usage. Tool usage instructions are up to the
implementer manual and discussion forums. You could suggest some
particular tool, e.g. Dev-C++ for Windows, but nothing beyond it.


?

I'll check any explanation of that in January... ;-)




In other words, a Linux user will probably avoid this tutorial due to
its name (and may be also due to involving Windows with C++ all the time
in its chapters).



Have a Merry Christmas!


Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you too!
 
I

Ioannis Vranos

Alf said:
Thank you.

I always confuse timelines. In _this_ timeline Dennis Ritchie was the
one, yes, building on the B language that Ken made. Grumble...


The history of C++ is as follows:


BCPL by Martin Richards (in 1960s)


B by Ken Thompson. As Dennis Ritchie notes:

"it is BCPL squeezed into 8K bytes of memory and filtered through
Thompson's brain."



C by Dennis Ritchie, which later became ISO/IEC 9899:1990 standard.


C++ by Bjarne Stroustrup, which later became ISO/IEC 14882:1998 standard.

C++ which with few exceptions (meaning differences), retains C90 as a
subset.


A nice document of history up to C is this by Dennis Ritchie:


http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/chist.pdf
 
I

Ioannis Vranos

Ioannis said:
B by Ken Thompson. As Dennis Ritchie notes:

"it is BCPL squeezed into 8K bytes of memory and filtered through
Thompson's brain."


Thompson is also the creator of Unix.
 

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