C++ Education Advice

D

Demon10000

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Aug 20, 2006
Messages
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Greetings:

I've been dabbling in programming for a while now, mostly dealing with logic problems for fun. Taking data and manipulating it, or doing simple file operations and such.

I've recently decided I wanted to write a program because I can't find one out there to do what I'm looking for. It is a little more intense than I have ever done, but I'm not too intimidated by it. In fact, I can handle the logic behind the program, I just need to learn a little more about creating the user interface that would sit on top of it.

I've done most of my programming in VB. While I've dabbled a bit in PHP, I never did much more than database operations. I think it's time to start looking into C++, and I have access to the VS2005 at work so I thought I would give it ago.

I learned VB the hard way, and I learned a lot of stuff wrong. I want to start at the absolute beginning for C++, and learn the terminology and language structure correct right from the start. Googling for "C++ tutorial" doesn't seem to help, as it turns up a lot of BS sites, and some that are a little more advanced than they claim.

I'm looking for some recommendations on web sites that may offer new user tutorials for the language. I know I can run out and grab a "teach yourself c++ in 24 days" or similar books, but I thought I'd toss a thread in here before I did that. It seems those books can be just as bad as a lot of web sites out there, and if someone actually learned from a decent tutorial site out there, I'd love to use it as well.

Thanks in advance!
:d:
 
C++ is the one language that doesn't work that way, I'm afraid.

The whole thing is a huge stack of syntax additions and being bug-compatible with inherited messes and a ton of features.

Whatever you do first and whatever path you choose with suck for a long time. You'll improve once you read all the "C++ pitfalls" and similar books but it really doesn't matter how you get there.
 
Personally, I would start by getting a book intended for classroom use. I learned using "Absolute C++" (in a class). I recommend that so that you can get plenty of example problems with solutions to work out in order to make sure you understand what you are reading.

C++ is probably one of the worst languages to learn with a "quick and dirty" intro. There are just too many different philosophies about it and too much depth to the language in my opinion.
 
I'd say start from either C# or Java, since they both are OOP. C++ is really messed up, it is a combination of old C and OPP.
 
I believe the C++ advocates would call that "multi-paradigm".

There are precious few OOP practices that Java supports and that C++ does not. In fact, there are some features, like multiple inheritance, that are possible in C++ but not in Java.
 
I have always believed that C++ is a great starting point specifically because it does NOT lock you into any given paradigm. If you are making your own design decisions in a broader space and understand what is happening behind the scenes to some extent, I contend that you will be a better, more flexible, problem-solver and programmer.
 
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