jouninkomiko?

[Sheekel]

i know he was doing a summer internship at Microsoft...any idea of when he might return? ....He was good at stuff....

[BlackLiger]

in about 500 years

Seriously, when he gets back, I'm gonna be annoying the hell out of him to teach me how to write c++ (damn tutorials are rubbish)

[Maelstrom]

Ill help you bug him. I have also wanted to learn, and found all the online tutorials crap. Unless someone else wants to help? Oh I have an idea. We make a wiki page on C++ for people to learn off. Then if anyone thinks it needs updating, it can be. Unlike most of the static, outdated tutorials on the internet. And we could have a forum thread so people can ask to have stuff added to the wiki page, if they find anything missing and dont know how to do it.

[Michilus_nimbus]

I think I'm just going to follow a course in my neighbourhood.

[munch]

You've got to be kidding - there is a ton of good stuff on the internet for learning C++ from. E.g. Bruce Eckel gives his books away for free on-line, so if you're happy reading on screen or printing them out:

http://mindview.net/Books/TICPP/ThinkingInCPP2e.html

See also:

http://www.freeprogrammingresources.com/cppbooks.html

For what it's worth, I learned C++ from this book, which I found to be a pretty good intro and has some nice tips in it:

http://newdata.box.sk/bx/c/

...although I bought the paper copy, because the WWW was practically non-existent back then ;-)

An essential book for any C++ programmer is Scot Meyers "Effective C++":

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/de ... 2?v=glance

This is basically a list of pitfalls and how to avoid them. You will make these mistakes if you don't know they're there to be made. There's a follow up book called "More Effective C++", but it's non-essential reading though still very useful. Perhaps the most essential tip in it is "Avoid direct polymorphic array usage", which like many of the other tips will save you from random crashes of you code.

Happy reading

Munch

[AF]

If you get befuddled understanding classes and all that, learn VB, it's easy, instant progs, and sorts out any problems you have with OOP, just dont get obsessed with it.

[BlackLiger]

I already know VB, thats why I wanna learn C++. VB takes too much of the customising away.

[Maelstrom]

Well I already know VB and know a little PHP, so I wanted to try to learn C++ as well. i just could not find any good tutorials on the internet. But I will definatley look at the ones you pointed out Munch. Which compiler do you recomend to use? Cause I will need to grab one of those to (unless I can be bothered learning to use Visual C++).

[SinbadEV]

I use DevCpp... it's as easy as Visual C++ without the M$ness... actually, I use a wxWidgets included version with a form builder... that part sucks... and I suck at C++ so I can't really go into it much... but if your trying to learn the basics its got the whole, write what you want... click compile and run and it does thing... which really makes it more accessible

[munch]

Well I already know VB and know a little PHP, so I wanted to try to learn C++ as well. i just could not find any good tutorials on the internet. But I will definatley look at the ones you pointed out Munch. Which compiler do you recomend to use? Cause I will need to grab one of those to (unless I can be bothered learning to use Visual C++).

At home I use the GNU compiler with vi (GVim actually). Personally I think vi is hard to beat as an editor =) If you're happy using the command line and an editor I totally recommend Cygwin, which basically gives you a Unix shell on your windows box, courtesy of GNU. The installer allows you to pick what languages/editors etc. you want. On the other hand if the command line is not your cup of tea....

I normally use Java but as it happens the project I'm working on at the moment is going to be implemented in C++. We're going to use Eclipse seeing as it's a good free IDE that a few of us are familiar with. I've not used DevCPP, though from the website it looks pretty good. It's amazing how much good free stuff there is out there these days!

Both DevCPP and Eclipse use the GNU compiler to actually compile the code, though I think you can select a different compiler. This means that if there really is a free command-line version of the MS C++ compiler, you might be able to compile MS proprietary stuff for free! However, I wouldn't recommend it - stick to the standard =)

If you want to get a handle on object orientation, Delphi is a good place to start - it's has the advantages of VB but is well structured and won't get you into bad coding habits. The "personal" edition is free for non-commercial use IIRC.

Links:

• devCPP http://www.bloodshed.net/devcpp.html
  Delphi http://www.borland.com/downloads/download_delphi.html
  Eclispe http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/index.php
  Cygwin http://www.cygwin.com/
  vim http://www.vim.org/download.php
  vi http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vi

Final thought: C++ is a language that allows you all sorts of mechanisms to make a right old mess of your code - it's best if you can avoid the complications in the first place. Remember the golden rule of engineering: keep it simple!

Hope this is useful

Munch