C++ and Microsoft Visual Studio 2008

[samuraicow]

Evening all,
I know its the off topic forum and that DB forums are not really the best place for this sort of questions but I realize some programmers find there way to this forum so hopefully some one could help me, and by all means if you know a better suiting forum for this questions please show me the way =p.


I know Pascal (or at lest, used to know heh ) and I am interested in actually buildings real life programs, I figured C++ is what I am looking for, but so far I am having a slight problem at finding out just how to get started.
I have this great C++ book(IRL), the only issue is that this book assumes that you already know how to use Microsoft's Visual Studio and that you know some C++, which I don't.

For beginners I found out the following way to get started: "Ada" witch is some sort of programing language witch is a lot like C++ and has many beginners guides for, so I figured I could go like:
1) Learn Ada (and use all this nice beginners guides\online books\examples).
2) Convert to C++ by comparing the syntax defiance between the two.

This still levies me in the cold in regards to knowing how to handle\worth with Visual Studio, as far as obtaining Visual Studio, and programing well:
1) ADA's programing invaiormente (compiler and what have you) is free
2) Microsoft released Virtual PC IMG that contains Vista+Office 2007+Visual Studio 2005\8 and some other helpful tools, for free, it expires in a year and by witch time I imagine they will have a newer version (as I found in there archive a VPC IMG of XP+VS05\office 2003 that expired just a month after the newer one was released).

So it comes down to the following questions:
1) How do one go about learning how to use\work with Visual studio (preferable the last version of it)?
2) Whats the best (or at lest, a good) way to learn C++, is it first learning Ada and then moving to C++ (Remember, I do know Pascal to a degree and I already know the basics and theory of programing so it might be a waist of time, to a degree), or is there some nice beginners guide\online book(or amazon IRL book) for beginners in C++?

Thanks


EDIT: Here are some links
1) That MS VPC IMG: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...7-948bc6957812
2) Ada related stuff:
* http://goanna.cs.rmit.edu.au/~dale/ada/aln.html
* http://www.adatutor.com/
* http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Ada_Programming

[Freddie]

I think that if you want to learn C++, you should study and use C++. Learning Ada is a detour and not an effective way to get to your goal.

If you want to start with something easier or smaller than C++, you can start with C, the language that C++ evolved from. For practical purposes C is a subset of C++ so almost everything you learn about C will actually get used in C++ programs. You can compile C programs with a C++ compiler so you don't even have to think of them as separate languages unless you want to. There's an incredibly wonderful beginner's book on C called "The C Programming Language" by Kernighan and Ritchie.

1) ADA's programing inviorment (compiler and what have you) is free

Microsoft gives away its C++ compiler (and all its other compilers) for free too:

http://www.microsoft.com/express/vc/

[Darcla]

For beginners I found out the following way to get started: "Ada" witch is some sort of programing language witch is a lot like C++ and has many beginners guides for, so I figured I could go like:
1) Learn Ada (and use all this nice beginners guides\online books\examples).
2) Convert to C++ by comparing the syntax defiance between the two.

Yikes... ADA... That is a VERY old language. I used to program that when I was in the AIr Force, and that is about the only use i know of anymore (On board systems are still 70s designs).

C++ is very straight forward and there are a lot of resources online and in book stores for getting started. The best way to learn would be to do a search for "Hello World" tutorials. These types of tutorials will give you a basic understanding of C++ syntax, as well as windows API programming.

Also Microsoft visual studio is a compiler. It basically takes the C++ syntax and converts it into machine language (assembly), and does whatever you programmed it to do. It is not required to do C++ and you do not need to know it in and out to be able to code. You can get a very basic (and free in some cases) combiler to do basic programs. I believe some colleges might also have online compilers that you may be able to access for free.

So to answer your question, just search for beginner C++ hello world tutorials and go from there. No need to learn another language to get there.

[samuraicow]

Great! Exactly what I wanted to hear, I honestly cant be arsed to learn anther aichent programing language (Pascal is nuf for my liking), I looked up "C++ hello world tutorial" and I got to say that I just had no idea that "hello world" equals a gold mine =p Thanks on that one


So yeah, I'll just go strat away with C++

In regards to "The C Programming Language" by Kernighan and Ritchi, is there some similar book that you could recommend for C++, while I realize that I dont really need a book with the amount of information that is found on the web, having one wont hurt xD


And Thanks for the quick and helpful replays :thumbup:

[Freddie]

Great! Exactly what I wanted to hear, I honestly cant be arsed to learn anther aichent programing language (Pascal is nuf for my liking), I looked up "C++ hello world tutorial" and I got to say that I just had no idea that "hello world" equals a gold mine =p Thanks on that one

There's a tradition that "Hello world!" is the first program you write when you learn a new language.

Do you know where that idea comes from originally? From the Kernighan and Ritchie book. That's how it begins -- with the first "Hello world!" program ever published in a book. According to Wikipedia, Kernighan invented the idea.

In regards to "The C Programming Language" by Kernighan and Ritchi, is there some similar book that you could recommend for C++, while I realize that I dont really need a book with the amount of information that is found on the web, having one wont hurt xD

I agree, get some books. That book is pretty much in a league of its own. It's a famous classic in computer science. Ritchie is the co-developer of Unix. Guys like that don't normally write beginner's language books. It's short and clear and easy to read.

One of the nice things about the K & R book is that subliminally, without even thinking about it, the reader absorbs a lot of useful info about software design and how to simplify and structure a program in a clean way. This stuff goes beyond the C language. It's invaluable for all programming.

I'm sure there are plenty of good introductory books on C++. I can't recommend any because I've never used them. When C++ got invented I was already a programmer, and the only book -- or maybe it was handouts at the time, I forget -- was by Stroustrup, the inventor of the language. I had a job at the time writing educational material about C++ for Bell Labs where C++ was invented, so I was involved with early C++ documentation, but as an author, not a reader.

Stroustrup's material on C++ has grown into a very heavy book, now in it's third edition, and if you're serious about becoming a good C++ programmer you'll probably buy it eventually. Although it can be used by knowledgeable programmers as a beginner's book, it's very dense and detailed and not something that most people would regard as a beginner's text.

Good luck! C++ is a great language and the free edition of Visual C++ is a great IDE. If you have any questions feel free to ask.

[Jafula]

Something that I found invaluable when programming C/C++ back in the day was Paul Nettle's memory manager.

Best free code/tool I could use for finding those pesky memory leaks. It's something you really need to start with to save you a world of pain later on...

You can find it here; documentation in the code:

http://www.paulnettle.com/pub/FluidS...emoryManagers/

Happy hacking :-)

[OogaJiggaWooga]

It's interesting that you knew Pascal, but have not thought to delve into Delphi (otherwise known as visual pascal) instead of C++, which is perfectly viable (I currently use it) for developing 'real life programs'.

[samuraicow]

[quote='OogaJiggaWooga',index.php?page=Thread&postI D=187529#post187529]It's interesting that you knew Pascal, but have not thought to delve into Delphi (otherwise known as visual pascal) instead of C++, which is perfectly viable (I currently use it) for developing 'real life programs'.[/quote]The reason I chose C++ over any other language is:
1) While I did hear the name "Delphi" couple of times "back in the day" I honestly never did much research about it, so I never thought about any thing else but C++ (not the best argument\excuse but well, its what happened).
2) In a year from now I plan to start learning at a university, and I plan to go for there special program witch takes 4 years to complete and at the end you get first degree in computer since and second degree in business management(go go my own start-up company, one man army for the win eh?), and in this university they have C++ as "native" language.

So basically this solo learning is with the above in mind 8)


Due to that C book being such a gem I should go and get it, use it to learn C (and other programing aspects), and then move to C++ and Stroustrup's content.


So we are looking at:
1) [url='http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Language-Prentice-Hall-Software/dp/0131103628/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1237485323&sr=8-1'] C Programming Language (2nd Edition)[/url]

And witch of the following? (Or is it all of them?):
1) The C++ Programming Language: Special Edition (3rd Edition)
2) Programming: Principles and Practice Using C++
3) The Design and Evolution of C++
4) C++ Primer Plus (5th Edition)

[Varmon]

My 0.02, even though you have previous programming experience is to start with C on a linux box so that you can focus 100% on learning C. Then make the leap to C++ and WinAPI because otherwise you will be learning both of them at once...just IMO, but I think it would far easier and will be much better off in the long run. Especially if your interest is doing lower level stuff with Windows

And I agree that the C programming language book is also very good, definitely pick it up

[Kicksome]

You may want to start out with vb.net. You can download a free 90 day trial of Visual Studio 2008 and get started.

Also, you should ask yourself why you want to learn C++ vs. vb if you're just getting started w/programming.

Java is also a good options, it's very in-demand since it's cross platform.