Introduction

[Ralathor]

Hello everyone.

I just wanted to introduce myself, and maby get a few of you...

Well, anyway...

I am pretty new to programming...

At first i looked at the "python" language for a couple of weeks, but
decided to try C or C++...
I am not still shure of what is the best choice, so if you could give
me some info about the strenghts and weaknesses of the two languages,
it would be nice...
I have tried searching on google, but i moastly found the
"differences",
not the strenghts and weaknesses.

I have looked a little at C++, but i have not yet found a good
"recource", and i don't think i have gone so far that i have come
"deeply" into the "C++ only" stuff that I cannot change to C...

I have heard some times that it is easiest for beginners to learn C,
and then C++. Should i do this?

The reason i am trying C or C++ instead of Python, is that for some
weird reason,
i find the C and C++ "simpler" and the commands "easier" ("cout<<" vs
"print" !).


Well... Back to me:
I live in Norway, not so far from the capital "Oslo".
I have been through a lot of aliases while looking for one
wich i thought "fitted"... Once I were playing a MMORPG, and needed
a name for a character. I came up with "Ralathor", and now I am using
it,
usually along with a "title", like "Lord Ralathor" for a Fantasy
game... You get the idea?

I am not learning any programming at school, but I probably will
later...

But right now, I want to learn it "as soon as possible"...
As in "I am going to do my best to be a decent programmer
in the shortest time possible, because this is something I find
interesting and is eager to learn".

By the way... Can you give me a tip for a good online guide for C/C++
along
with what I should start with...

I don't want to spend money on books as long as there is a
place called "The world wide web" where anybody can write a
guide for anyone to acsess without paying...

And sorry if my english is bad... I hate to brag, but I am one of the
best at my school...
But then, most of my school aren't computer geeks who write and read
english
all day long...


Ralathor -- Programming Newbie


[ See http://www.gotw.ca/resources/clcm.htm for info about ]
[ comp.lang.c++.moderated. First time posters: Do this! ]

 

[Victor Bazarov]

I just wanted to introduce myself, and maby get a few of you...

This is not really a social gathering, you know.

Well, anyway...

I am pretty new to programming...

At first i looked at the "python" language for a couple of weeks, but
decided to try C or C++...
I am not still shure of what is the best choice, so if you could give
me some info about the strenghts and weaknesses of the two languages,
it would be nice...

Try http://groups.google.com

I have tried searching on google, but i moastly found the
"differences",
not the strenghts and weaknesses.

Probably because there aren't any. What would you say is the strength
or a weakness of a hammer? [that's a rhetorical question]

I have looked a little at C++, but i have not yet found a good
"recource", and i don't think i have gone so far that i have come
"deeply" into the "C++ only" stuff that I cannot change to C...

I have heard some times that it is easiest for beginners to learn C,
and then C++. Should i do this?

No. They are two different languages. If you don't need one of them,
don't learn it.

The reason i am trying C or C++ instead of Python, is that for some
weird reason,
i find the C and C++ "simpler" and the commands "easier" ("cout<<" vs
"print" !).

Different people find different things easy or convenient.

Well... Back to me:
[..personal stuff snipped..]

Thanks for sharing.

By the way... Can you give me a tip for a good online guide for C/C++
along
with what I should start with...
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.c++/
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.c++.moderated/

I don't want to spend money on books as long as there is a
place called "The world wide web" where anybody can write a
guide for anyone to acsess without paying...

You can't find as much useful and *good* information on WWW as you would
in books, and even if you can, it would all be scattered in small pieces.
Books are there to consolidate and collect in one place what is otherwise
difficult or requires too much time to find.

[..]

V

 

[osmium]

:

At first i looked at the "python" language for a couple of weeks, but
decided to try C or C++...
I am not still shure of what is the best choice, so if you could give
me some info about the strenghts and weaknesses of the two languages,
it would be nice...
I have tried searching on google, but i moastly found the
"differences",
not the strenghts and weaknesses.

I often have the same problem and it is annoying as hell. "Visual
Enterprise Aspect version 5.1 is much improved from version 5.0. It now
features a green globbis ..."

As far as C is concerned, its main strength is that is, as such things go, a
very simple language. At one time people spoke of it as a portable assembly
language. Concise and cryptic. Since C++ evolved from C it shares the
cryptic roots but the stuff added to make it C++ is more verbose.

I think this site probably has about as good an answer as you are likely to
find on what C++ is all about. The page belongs to the "father" of C++.

http://www.research.att.com/~bs/bs_faq.html#oop

 

[Mike Wahler]

By the way... Can you give me a tip for a good online guide for C/C++
along
with what I should start with...
http://ma.rtij.nl/acllc-c++.FAQ.html

I don't want to spend money on books as long as there is a
place called "The world wide web" where anybody can write a
guide for anyone to acsess without paying...

Imo books are the best way to learn. The problem with the web
is that there's far more wrong information available than
correct information, and a novice won't be able to tell the
difference. See www.accu.org for experts' reviews of books
about C and C++ (and others).

-Mike

 

[Noah Roberts]

Imo books are the best way to learn. The problem with the web
is that there's far more wrong information available than
correct information, and a novice won't be able to tell the
difference. See www.accu.org for experts' reviews of books
about C and C++ (and others).

Same problem with books really...at least as much wrong information as
correct. Maybe there should be an accu for websites.

 

[Victor Bazarov]

[..] Maybe there should be an accu for websites.

I thought there was one: http://groups.google.com

 

[Francis Glassborow]

Imo books are the best way to learn. The problem with the web
is that there's far more wrong information available than
correct information, and a novice won't be able to tell the
difference. See www.accu.org for experts' reviews of books
about C and C++ (and others).

Well that is also true of books on C and C++ for novices :-(

 

[Ralathor]

Imo books are the best way to learn. The problem with the web
is that there's far more wrong information available than
correct information, and a novice won't be able to tell the
difference. See www.accu.org for experts' reviews of books
about C and C++ (and others).

I understand what you mean, but do you know of any books who
have been made into PDFs?
I might buy a book later, but at the moment,
I have decided to just learn it on my PC.
If you know of any links to a guide you know is right,
please post it. The only thing worse than a bad guide,
is a wong guide.
After all, I want to learn "C++" ( I decided to go with that ),
not "C+??".
Thank you for warning me.

Ralathor -- Programming Newbie

 

[Victor Bazarov]

I understand what you mean, but do you know of any books who
have been made into PDFs?

Look for "Thinking in C++"

I might buy a book later, but at the moment,
I have decided to just learn it on my PC.

If you know of any links to a guide you know is right,
please post it. The only thing worse than a bad guide,
is a wong guide.

What's a "wong guide"? And how is it different from a bad one?

After all, I want to learn "C++" ( I decided to go with that ),
not "C+??".

If you want to do that without pulling your hair out and without
learning bad things which you will need to un-learn later, listen
to what Mike has to say.

V

 

[todma]

A great place to learn about C++:
http://www.research.att.com/~bs/C++.html

 

[Default User]

Ralathor wrote:

What's a "wong guide"? And how is it different from a bad one?

Like books, you can have web sites that have accurate information but
are poorly written, indexed, or formatted.




Brian

 

[Victor Bazarov]

Like books, you can have web sites that have accurate information but
are poorly written, indexed, or formatted.

Uh... And which are they, then? Bad ones or wong ones? And how
can "bad" be "wite"? (or what's the opposite of "wong"?)

V

 

[Noah Roberts]

[..] Maybe there should be an accu for websites.

I thought there was one: http://groups.google.com

That place has all sort of yahoos giving out bad advice...

 

[Victor Bazarov]

[..] Maybe there should be an accu for websites.

I thought there was one: http://groups.google.com

That place has all sort of yahoos giving out bad advice...

I didn't mean he should read our posts. I mean he should
read the reviews of web sites there.

V

 

[David Abrahams]

Hello everyone.

I just wanted to introduce myself, and maby get a few of you...

Well, anyway...

I am pretty new to programming...

At first i looked at the "python" language for a couple of weeks, but
decided to try C or C++... I am not still shure of what is the best
choice,

Interesting. Well, they have very different strengths.

so if you could give me some info about the strenghts and
weaknesses of the two languages, it would be nice... I have tried
searching on google, but i moastly found the "differences", not the
strenghts and weaknesses.

http://www.boost-consulting.com/writing/bpl.html#introduction might
be of some help.

I have looked a little at C++, but i have not yet found a good
"recource", and i don't think i have gone so far that i have come
"deeply" into the "C++ only" stuff that I cannot change to C...

I have heard some times that it is easiest for beginners to learn C,
and then C++. Should i do this?

Absolutely not!

IMO, C is much more difficult for a beginner than C++ for all but the
most low-level systems programming, because it lacks nearly all the
nice high-level abstractions that you might find in Python such as
strings, lists, and tuples.

I suggest you start with "Accelerated C++," by Koenig & Moo, which
presents C++ in an order that makes it easy for beginners to grasp.

The reason i am trying C or C++ instead of Python, is that for some
weird reason, i find the C and C++ "simpler" and the commands "easier"
("cout<<" vs "print" !).

Chacun a son gout.

(Everyone has his own syntactic affinities.)

I am not learning any programming at school, but I probably will
later...

But right now, I want to learn it "as soon as possible"... As in "I
am going to do my best to be a decent programmer in the shortest time
possible, because this is something I find interesting and is eager to
learn".

Starting with Koenig&Moo is a good way to go, then.

By the way... Can you give me a tip for a good online guide for C/C++
along with what I should start with...

I don't want to spend money on books as long as there is a place
called "The world wide web" where anybody can write a guide for anyone
to acsess without paying...

I advise you to spend a little on very good books anyway. Especially
where documentation and guides are concerned, you usually get what you
pay for. Writing is much more difficult than coding for most
programmers, so we don't usually invest the effort to put out really
top-notch tutorials as free webpages.

.....and it's so easy to teach C++ badly, I'm sure you'll find a lot of
that on the web.

And sorry if my english is bad... I hate to brag, but I am one of
the best at my school... But then, most of my school aren't
computer geeks who write and read english all day long...

That's pretty funny. Most english-speaking computer geeks aren't the
best writers ;-)

--
Dave Abrahams
Boost Consulting
www.boost-consulting.com

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[ comp.lang.c++.moderated. First time posters: Do this! ]

 

[Ralathor]

If you know of any links to a guide you know is right,

What's a "wong guide"? And how is it different from a bad one?

Oh! Sorry...

It was a writing error... I ment a "wrong" guide...

The "R" button on my keybord sometimes don't work...

Don't know why, but it might be because the keyboard
is beginning to get old... I am getting a new one soon, anyway...

Ralathor -- Programming Newbie

 

[pavan734]

Hello everyone.

I just wanted to introduce myself, and maby get a few of you...

I think it is better to learn C before u learn c++ . Ofcourse there are
some books which explain c++ without prior knowledge on c . In my
opinion u anyhow need to learn c concepts to leran c++. So better learn
c.


[ See http://www.gotw.ca/resources/clcm.htm for info about ]
[ comp.lang.c++.moderated. First time posters: Do this! ]

 

[Antti Virtanen]

I am pretty new to programming...

And likely new to Usenet news too. Pay attention to the grammar,
especially when cross-posting and you'll get much more positive
feedback. (I don't intend to argue about why grammar is important,
just stating this as an empirical observation.)

I set follow-up to comp.lang.c++ since that seemed most appropriate
to me.

I am not still shure of what is the best choice, so if you could give
me some info about the strenghts and weaknesses of the two languages,
it would be nice...
I have tried searching on google, but i moastly found the
"differences",
not the strenghts and weaknesses.

What is strength for one programmer may be weakness for another.
Python is powerful high level language and I've heard many
positive opinions about it. C++ is an extremely powerful language with
both high level and low level constructs. It is not the language
I would recommend to a novice programmer, since the sheer complexity
of C++ makes it difficult to master. You should also consider Java as
your first programming language.

Whatever you choose matters very little in the long run if you really
want to learn programming. Knowing many languages and their differences
is actually good since it gives perspective and once you know a few
languages, learning new ones is not difficult at all. Whatever is
the hottest thing now won't probably be that hot after ten years or
at leats it hast to evolve to maintain it's position.

I have looked a little at C++, but i have not yet found a good
"recource", and i don't think i have gone so far that i have come
"deeply" into the "C++ only" stuff that I cannot change to C...

If you compare C and Python, you should notice that Python's design
philosophy is very different from C.

I have heard some times that it is easiest for beginners to learn C,
and then C++. Should i do this?

IMHO no, you shouldn't. I don't know where that idea comes from, but
while C++ certainly has more features than C, there is little point
learning C as the first language nowadays. The things which are better
done in C are not things a beginner programmer should try to do.

The reason i am trying C or C++ instead of Python, is that for some
weird reason,
i find the C and C++ "simpler" and the commands "easier" ("cout<<" vs
"print" !).

That is weird indeed since "print" is a clean english word while
"cout" doesn't mean anything unless you happen to know C++. I have
liked (Turbo/Object) Pascal from the very first sight since the
language looks so much like plain english that reading the code is
very easy.

As in "I am going to do my best to be a decent programmer
in the shortest time possible, because this is something I find
interesting and is eager to learn".

Just yesterday I read a text written in 1975 by Dijkstra.
This guy is a quite respected fellow world wide and he proposed
that one should learn to think and avoid being fascinated by individual
programming languages. Programming is a skill which is independent
from any particular programming language, but unfortunately a lot
of teachers and students do not make this distinction.

I personally agree 100% with this notion. This doesn't mean you
can learn to program without learning any programming language, but
try to capitalize on the general ideas and not the language.

About the "shortest time", I must say that Internet is
something extremely valuable for a novice. When I started
programming there was little literature and teachers
available and internet was just far away. To become an
expert it takes a lot of time with the help of internet
so don't be discouraged if you are not recognized as
such after two years of hard work.

By the way... Can you give me a tip for a good online guide for C/C++
along
with what I should start with...

"Thinking in C++" by Bruce Eckel has been available online and it's
pretty good. SGI has C++ standard library online reference, which
you'll need to check things out.

I don't want to spend money on books as long as there is a
place called "The world wide web" where anybody can write a
guide for anyone to acsess without paying...

I suppose you could also consider going to a real world facility known
as "library" where you should find vast amounts of literature for free.

 

[Francis Glassborow]

Absolutely not!

IMO, C is much more difficult for a beginner than C++ for all but the
most low-level systems programming, because it lacks nearly all the
nice high-level abstractions that you might find in Python such as
strings, lists, and tuples.

I suggest you start with "Accelerated C++," by Koenig & Moo, which
presents C++ in an order that makes it easy for beginners to grasp.

That book is for those who already have some programming experience or
are quick studies. 'You Can Do It!' is much slower paced and focuses on

the needs of the raw novice (yes, obviously I am biased

BTW both AC++ and YCDI are reasonable size books and not that expensive

(in the programming context)


--
Francis Glassborow ACCU
Author of 'You Can Do It!' and "You Can Program in C++"
see http://www.spellen.org/youcandoit
For project ideas and contributions:
http://www.spellen.org/youcandoit/projects


[ See http://www.gotw.ca/resources/clcm.htm for info about ]
[ comp.lang.c++.moderated. First time posters: Do this! ]

 

[Francis Glassborow]

I think it is better to learn C before u learn c++ . Ofcourse there are
some books which explain c++ without prior knowledge on c . In my
opinion u anyhow need to learn c concepts to leran c++. So better learn
c.

Why? Because you did? Or because the books you read are written by
authors who think that is the right way to go?

It also helps strengthen your opinions if you take the time to express
them in good English. Typos are acceptable, we all make them in this
medium but lazy writing is not.


--
Francis Glassborow ACCU
Author of 'You Can Do It!' and "You Can Program in C++"
see http://www.spellen.org/youcandoit
For project ideas and contributions:
http://www.spellen.org/youcandoit/projects


[ See http://www.gotw.ca/resources/clcm.htm for info about ]
[ comp.lang.c++.moderated. First time posters: Do this! ]