learning Modern C++

[arnuld]

hai all,

i am standing on a "crossroad to C++". I am here in front of you as i
have a problem. i will be brief. Please do not think: "arnuld is sick",
i am really struggling & doing hard-work to become a Modern C++
Programmer & i am feeling as if i am standing on a crossroad. i am
asking because every time i made a decision on my own, in my past, i
always ran into huge wastage of time, money & effort. that is why i am
posting it here:

--Problem-- as you folks know that i want to learn Modern C++ & in my
country "C++ Primer" 4/e & "Accelerated C++" are not available & being
a jobless person i dont have money to order anything from abroad. i
have these books on my shelf:

1.) "Thinking in C++" 2/e
2.) "C++ Primer" 3/e
3.) "The C++ Programming Language" by Bjarne Stroustrup
4.) An illegal version of "C++ Primer" 4/e as a .chm file on my
Desktop.

i have these 5 options:

1.) read "C++ Primer 4/e" online: cant be done. with online copies
productivity goes down to 20%. reading "physically" really makes the
difference in understanding & learning the language.

2.) i took print-outs of 2-3-4 chapters of C++ Primer 4/e & read them &
found them excellent, though i took a while to understand. it has > 800
pages, for me, it means 1000 pages of print outs from my EPSON
dot-matrix in 8 separate folders. it will be very difficult to learn
this way & what if i want to search for some phrase/ideas in C++, i am
"gone" in this case. i speak from experience, i tried this with
"Practical Common Lisp" & trust me, it was huge time wastage with much
less productivity & output (well, that is why Stroustrup created C++


3.) read "Bruce Eckel": tried that, he makes heavy-use of C. i dont
know C, i dont want to, i want C++.

4.) read "C++ Primer" 3/e: utterly incomprehensible to me.

4.) Learn C first -> OOA & D book -> C++. an excellent way to confuse
myself as i have found that learning "vectors, strings, new-delete"
1st, makes learning "C character arrays & free-malloc" much easier.
(while the opposite is not true, i tried it 2 months ago)

5.) Go directly with Stroustrup: +ve point is i will learn "Pure C++",
-ve point is i dont have any real-life coding experience, hence i found
it *too* dense & 50% of the times i did not understand what exactly he
was talink about. (but i do know what are variables, functions &
classes + strings, vectors, new delete from C++)

from all of this, i concluded Stroustrup is the only way to go. i just
need to dwell into it. what do you suggest?

thanks for your time

- arnuld
http://arnuld.blogapot.com

 

[Alf P. Steinbach]

* arnuld:

from all of this, i concluded Stroustrup is the only way to go. i just
need to dwell into it. what do you suggest?

Go for Stroustrup. That's the book I used (but then I had background
from C, and also, it was the first edition, which was a very slim book
compared to later ones aimed at US market where books are sold by
weight). Just read it /slowly/, like each page is one chapter, and
don't forget, try out things on your computer, e.g. /for each page/!

 

[Joseph Paterson]

hai all,

i am standing on a "crossroad to C++". I am here in front of you as i
have a problem. i will be brief. Please do not think: "arnuld is sick",
i am really struggling & doing hard-work to become a Modern C++
Programmer & i am feeling as if i am standing on a crossroad. i am
asking because every time i made a decision on my own, in my past, i
always ran into huge wastage of time, money & effort. that is why i am
posting it here:

--Problem-- as you folks know that i want to learn Modern C++ & in my
country "C++ Primer" 4/e & "Accelerated C++" are not available & being
a jobless person i dont have money to order anything from abroad. i
have these books on my shelf:

1.) "Thinking in C++" 2/e
2.) "C++ Primer" 3/e
3.) "The C++ Programming Language" by Bjarne Stroustrup
4.) An illegal version of "C++ Primer" 4/e as a .chm file on my
Desktop.

i have these 5 options:

1.) read "C++ Primer 4/e" online: cant be done. with online copies
productivity goes down to 20%. reading "physically" really makes the
difference in understanding & learning the language.

2.) i took print-outs of 2-3-4 chapters of C++ Primer 4/e & read them &
found them excellent, though i took a while to understand. it has > 800
pages, for me, it means 1000 pages of print outs from my EPSON
dot-matrix in 8 separate folders. it will be very difficult to learn
this way & what if i want to search for some phrase/ideas in C++, i am
"gone" in this case. i speak from experience, i tried this with
"Practical Common Lisp" & trust me, it was huge time wastage with much
less productivity & output (well, that is why Stroustrup created C++


3.) read "Bruce Eckel": tried that, he makes heavy-use of C. i dont
know C, i dont want to, i want C++.

4.) read "C++ Primer" 3/e: utterly incomprehensible to me.

4.) Learn C first -> OOA & D book -> C++. an excellent way to confuse
myself as i have found that learning "vectors, strings, new-delete"
1st, makes learning "C character arrays & free-malloc" much easier.
(while the opposite is not true, i tried it 2 months ago)

5.) Go directly with Stroustrup: +ve point is i will learn "Pure C++",
-ve point is i dont have any real-life coding experience, hence i found
it *too* dense & 50% of the times i did not understand what exactly he
was talink about. (but i do know what are variables, functions &
classes + strings, vectors, new delete from C++)

from all of this, i concluded Stroustrup is the only way to go. i just
need to dwell into it. what do you suggest?

thanks for your time

- arnuld
http://arnuld.blogapot.com

I definitely think you should learn C as well though. You can't go past
"The C Programming Language", by Brian W. Kernighan and Dennis M.
Ritchie.

 

[Roland Pibinger]

i am standing on a "crossroad to C++". I am here in front of you as i
have a problem. i will be brief. Please do not think: "arnuld is sick",
i am really struggling & doing hard-work to become a Modern C++
Programmer & i am feeling as if i am standing on a crossroad. i am
asking because every time i made a decision on my own, in my past, i
always ran into huge wastage of time, money & effort. that is why i am
posting it here:
--Problem-- as you folks know that i want to learn Modern C++ & in my
country "C++ Primer" 4/e & "Accelerated C++" are not available & being
a jobless person i dont have money to order anything from abroad. i
have these books on my shelf:

Why do you want to learn old-fashioned 'Modern C++'? If I were
'standing on a crossroad' I would learn C, a modern scripting language
like Ruby or Python and - depending on the job market - either Java
(language and platform(s)) or C# and .NET.

Best wishes,
Roland Pibinger

 

[arnuld]

I definitely think you should learn C as well though.

learning new langugae is always a good idea.

You can't go past "The C Programming Language", by Brian W. Kernighan
and Dennis M. Ritchie.

what it has to do with C++?

 

[mlimber]

i am standing on a "crossroad to C++". I am here in front of you as i
have a problem. i will be brief. Please do not think: "arnuld is sick",
i am really struggling & doing hard-work to become a Modern C++
Programmer & i am feeling as if i am standing on a crossroad. i am
asking because every time i made a decision on my own, in my past, i
always ran into huge wastage of time, money & effort. that is why i am
posting it here:

You should say, "posting it here repeatedly."

--Problem-- as you folks know that i want to learn Modern C++ & in my
country "C++ Primer" 4/e & "Accelerated C++" are not available & being
a jobless person i dont have money to order anything from abroad. i
have these books on my shelf:

1.) "Thinking in C++" 2/e
2.) "C++ Primer" 3/e
3.) "The C++ Programming Language" by Bjarne Stroustrup
4.) An illegal version of "C++ Primer" 4/e as a .chm file on my
Desktop.

i have these 5 options:

1.) read "C++ Primer 4/e" online: cant be done. with online copies
productivity goes down to 20%. reading "physically" really makes the
difference in understanding & learning the language.

2.) i took print-outs of 2-3-4 chapters of C++ Primer 4/e & read them &
found them excellent, though i took a while to understand. it has > 800
pages, for me, it means 1000 pages of print outs from my EPSON
dot-matrix in 8 separate folders. it will be very difficult to learn
this way & what if i want to search for some phrase/ideas in C++, i am
"gone" in this case. i speak from experience, i tried this with
"Practical Common Lisp" & trust me, it was huge time wastage with much
less productivity & output (well, that is why Stroustrup created C++

Add to that the ethical issues involved in stolen books, and you have a
clear-cut case against this one, IMHO.

3.) read "Bruce Eckel": tried that, he makes heavy-use of C. i dont
know C, i dont want to, i want C++.

You have a hard-copy of this? If so, it might be your best bet.

4.) read "C++ Primer" 3/e: utterly incomprehensible to me.

Possibly dated, too. I'm not sure.

4.) Learn C first -> OOA & D book -> C++. an excellent way to confuse
myself

Right. C++ is not C.

as i have found that learning "vectors, strings, new-delete"
1st, makes learning "C character arrays & free-malloc" much easier.
(while the opposite is not true, i tried it 2 months ago)

Right. That's why _Accelerated C++_ does it in that order.

5.) Go directly with Stroustrup: +ve point is i will learn "Pure C++",
-ve point is i dont have any real-life coding experience, hence i found
it *too* dense & 50% of the times i did not understand what exactly he
was talink about. (but i do know what are variables, functions &
classes + strings, vectors, new delete from C++)

I presume you mean the 3rd ed. This is an excellent book, but it is not
for beginners. I would suggest learning the basics somewhere else.

from all of this, i concluded Stroustrup is the only way to go. i just
need to dwell into it. what do you suggest?

You're going to have to climb the learning curve somewhere, and I'd say
_Thinking in C++_ is the best of your options. Do the exercises Eckel
gives, and practice practice practice. Maybe you can join an
open-source project of some sort to get additional experience.

- arnuld
http://arnuld.blogapot.com

Hmm, that doesn't look like a blog to me. Why put it in your sig?

Cheers! --M

 

[arnuld]

Why do you want to learn old-fashioned 'Modern C++'?

what is the reason behind this "saying"?

If "Modern C++" is old-fashioned, what exactly you will say for C.

If I were
'standing on a crossroad' I would learn C, a modern scripting language
like Ruby or Python and - depending on the job market - either Java
(language and platform(s)) or C# and .NET.

this is exactly what i am talking about, "depending on the job market".
i chose C++ because in India, i have found majority of jobs require
standalone "C++, UNIX user experience, OOA & D knowledge + 1-2 years of
real-life coding". i dont like Jave, i hate Java & i use UNIX not
buggy Windows & their crappy tools like ".NET" & "non-sense a.k.a VB".
sorry & i could not resist.

i used Windows for 4 years. since Dec 2005, i am using Debian Sarge & i
feel i am years ahead in my "technical development".

Best wishes,

thanks ;-)

 

[arnuld]

arnuld wrote:

You should say, "posting it here repeatedly."

Ha...Ha.....you naughty boy ;-)

Add to that the ethical issues involved in stolen books, and you have a
clear-cut case against this one, IMHO.

Hmmm.... i think of these issues now.

You have a hard-copy of this? If so, it might be your best bet.

it is a good book but i do not understand most of his programmes
because of "too much of C" is used as basics.

I presume you mean the 3rd ed. This is an excellent book, but it is not
for beginners. I would suggest learning the basics somewhere else.

yes, it is 3rd edition. after reading it for whole day i felt
"Stroustrup" created C++ to solve some of the most painful issues of
Sofware Engineering (the ones where C was quite a terrible choice)

You're going to have to climb the learning curve somewhere, and I'd say
_Thinking in C++_ is the best of your options. Do the exercises Eckel
gives, and practice practice practice. Maybe you can join an
open-source project of some sort to get additional experience.

GNU is my destination for contributions.

Hmm, that doesn't look like a blog to me. Why put it in your sig?

really very sorry for that "typo". corrected this time. it is my blog &
i want to get comments from some "experienced" individuals regarding my
article "On The Perils of Java Schools".

Cheers! --M

OK, i say Cheers! ;-)

-- arnuld
http://arnuld.blogspot.com

 

[mlimber]

learning new langugae is always a good idea.

Wrong. There is likely no good reason for you to learn COBOL or PL/I.
Not only is it not "a good idea," but if you won't use it, then it's a
waste of your time and money.

With C, the case is certainly more debatable, but I'd say learn C later
or if/when you actually need it (the FAQ agrees:
http://www.parashift.com/c++-faq-lite/how-to-learn-cpp.html#faq-28.2).
C is different than C++. For instance, the former requires more
low-level resource management like malloc/free and fopen/fclose, while
the latter automates such tasks with fundamental techniques like RAII.
C requires return codes to indicate errors, while C++ provides
exceptions. Etc. etc. If you want to learn C++, learn C++ not C (or
Java or Smalltalk or whatever).

Cheers! --M

 

[arnuld]

Wrong. There is likely no good reason for you to learn COBOL or PL/I.

Not only is it not "a good idea," but if you won't use it, then it's a
waste of your time and money.

Hmmm...... i think you are *right*. what do 90% of people say in this
world is really way, way wrong. either it needs to be changed or
modified, like you did. i usually do it, in my daily habits like
talking, responding to certain situations or giving an answer to
someone's question, the way you did & nearly 99.99% of the times people
see right & left and remain silent as they do not find any logic of
their questions, after listening to my answer.

today you taught me

With C, the case is certainly more debatable, but I'd say learn C later
or if/when you actually need it (the FAQ agrees:
http://www.parashift.com/c++-faq-lite/how-to-learn-cpp.html#faq-28.2).

FAQ is good place, i always consult it first & follow it. (it started
just last week as i saw that my 4 months of experience "matches" with
"Learning OO/C++" part of FAQs. i could have saved a lot of time just
by following the advice from FAQ).

C is different than C++. For instance, the former requires more
low-level resource management like malloc/free and fopen/fclose, while
the latter automates such tasks with fundamental techniques like RAII.
C requires return codes to indicate errors, while C++ provides
exceptions. Etc. etc. If you want to learn C++, learn C++ not C (or
Java or Smalltalk or whatever).

i cant explain whether the reason is "low level resource management" or
"something else" but it happened with me in case of "vectors, strings,
new-delete" & "C style character strings, arrays, free malloc, as i
told you in my earlier post.

Cheers! --M

OK... i say Cheers! again ;-)

one more thing, i have my signatures in "gmail" but how can i have my
signatures here in posting answers? i put my name & blog address
everytime manually :-(

 

[BobR]

arnuld wrote in message

3.) read "Bruce Eckel": tried that, he makes heavy-use of C. i dont
know C, i dont want to, i want C++.

Starts in 'C', goes to 'C++'. ( It really helps to be able to recognise 'C'
from 'C++' code.)
Do you have both vol 1 & 2?


I have a method for tech. books:

Read the book cover-to-cover ( like a paper-back novel). Don't stop, even if
you don't understand.
Then, re-read the book. This time, do all the examples (and do experiment!),
end-of-chapter tests, etc.. Do not progress to the next section until you
have (at least some) understanding of the section you are in.

Try it, I think you'll find it logical.

 

[Greg Comeau]

Wrong. There is likely no good reason for you to learn COBOL or PL/I.
Not only is it not "a good idea," but if you won't use it, then it's a
waste of your time and money.

Maybe. Maybe not.

 

[mlimber]

Maybe. Maybe not.

Well, one might learn some things indirectly from such an experience or
gain some self-satifaction for posessing arcane knowledge, but more
than likely one's resources would be better invested elsewhere.

Cheers! --M

 

[Greg Comeau]

Well, one might learn some things indirectly from such an experience or
gain some self-satifaction for posessing arcane knowledge, but more
than likely one's resources would be better invested elsewhere.

Picking up a new language may not _always_ be a good idea,
but not learning sonmething because "you won't use it" does not
have to mean it is arcane.

 

[arnuld]

Starts in 'C', goes to 'C++'. ( It really helps to be able to recognise 'C'

from 'C++' code.)
Do you have both vol 1 & 2?

no, i own only vol-1 but both volumes are easily available in India.

I have a method for tech. books:

Read the book cover-to-cover ( like a paper-back novel). Don't stop, even if
you don't understand.
Then, re-read the book. This time, do all the examples (and do experiment!),
end-of-chapter tests, etc.. Do not progress to the next section until you
have (at least some) understanding of the section you are in.

Try it, I think you'll find it logical.

i tried it IIRC, i found it good. anyway, i have 2 ways to go form the
replies here: Stroustrup & Eckel, i will try them both before making
any point.

POVrookie

what does that mean?

 

[Phlip]

POVrookie

what does that mean?

Maybe www.povray.org

(Thence http://flea.sourceforge.net/ )

 

[BobR]

arnuld wrote in message

no, i own only vol-1 but both volumes are easily available in India.

Get "Thinking in C++", 2nd ed. Volume 1(&2) by Bruce Eckel
(available for free here. You can buy it in hardcopy too.):
http://www.mindview.net/Books/TICPP/ThinkingInCPP2e.html

what does that mean?

Will reply to Philip tomorrow...... <G>

 

[mlimber]

Picking up a new language may not _always_ be a good idea,
but not learning sonmething because "you won't use it" does not
have to mean it is arcane.

Yes, yes. I didn't mean in absolute terms. Just pragmatically speaking.

Cheers! --M

 

[tragomaskhalos]

Arnuld,

Some extra advice:

1/ Books are great, but you will only make real progress by writing
code.
So, whichever book you decide to use, get yourself a free compiler - in
fact preferably several - and get coding.
And whilst small snippets are OK, a meaty project is the best way to
really get to grips with the language.

2/ C++ is a big language, but it can be tackled one bit at a time -
don't try and learn the whole lot at once, instead learn the core
concepts and practice them, then move on to the next level.

3/ If there is an economic imperative at work here - eg you can't
afford books - whilst I applaud your dedication to C++ I question it
from a commercial perspective. .NET and/or Java are a far shorter route
to paying the bills. I say this as someone who processes a good deal of
CVs from your part of the world.

Good luck anyway ...

 

[mlimber]

For learning the language I pass another book on my shelf, by O'Reilly.
It's loaned out right now, but I think it was title just 'Learning C++'.

The problem is that the OP has limited book availability. As for
_Learning C++_, see the review at:

http://accu.org/index.php/book_reviews?url=view.xqy?review=l003746

If any book were a possiblity, I'd still go with _Accelerated C++_ (see
the review at
http://accu.org/index.php/book_reviews?url=view.xqy?review=a002212).

Cheers! --M