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Table of contents
| Table of Contents |
|---|
Child pages
| Child pages (Children Display) |
|---|
C
The C Programming Language (K&R) - seems to be the hands-down favorite among programmers
Websites:
The C Library Reference
Everything you need to know about pointers
A TUTORIAL ON POINTERS AND ARRAYS IN C
C++
I've heard that you should study C before C++.
Books Rec'd By Professional Programmers:
C++ Primer Plus by Stephen Prata - has the most rave reviews; people say it's the best book for absolute beginners
C++ Primer by Stanley Lippman - reviewers say this is the next book to read after Primer Plus
The C++ Programming Language by Bjarne Strousup - from reviews it sounds like this may be better for advanced users
Books Less Frequently Rec'd by CS Majors:
Beginning C++ Through Game Programming
C++ For Dummies - I thought this book was pretty good, although it got a lot harder once he started talking about pointers. It doesn't have great reviews, but you can get it for like $4.01 (including shipping), so the risk/reward still seems in favor of checking it out.
Websites:
Marshall Cline's C++ FAQ - http://www.parashift.com/c++-faq-lite/
Forums:
cplusplus forums - http://www.cplusplus.com/forum/ (seems pretty active)
C++ For Dummies by Stephen Davis
What I'm getting from the book:
- C++ is basically a way to talk to computers. You type instructions in C++, send them to a compiler that translates C++ into machine instructions, and the computer reads those machine instructions.
- C++ is also like a language in that you need to spend time with it before it will start to sink in and feel familiar. You need to have faith that this feeling of familiarity will come, because otherwise you may feel too intimidated by it and give up.
- C++ For Dummies gives a basic overview of the language's parts and explains some tools of the language used for certain situations. It's like reading a Spanish for Dummies book which conveys information in the depth seen in this example: "Sometimes you'll want to communicate that something happened in the past. For those situations, the language has a special tool: the past tense. Here are some very basic traits of the past tense: [...]"
- The difficulty of the material seemed to really ramp up for me with chapter 8, which introduces the concept of pointers. i think i just need to spend more time with the concepts until they sink in.
- C++ lingo is filled with slang, which can make things sound mysterious and/or intimidating if you don't understand what the slang is referencing. I liked that the author knows the history of C++ and can point out arbitrary/stupid aspects for what they are.
p161-164 - great explanation of what object-oriented programming is (using an analogy of a microwave):
- the basic idea is to make parts of the computer program self-contained so that they can be swapped in and out easily, as opposed to having all kinds of references to things in other parts of the code. for example, if your program needs to execute some
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LESS IMPORTANT:
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My motivation for reading the book:
I've wanted to study a programming language for a while now, but I finally started reading C++ for dummies after I watched "the social network" and read that this was the first programming book mark zuckerberg used. Here's the Harvard Crimson article that mentions the Zuckerberg's use of book: http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2004/ ... z/?print=1
"C++ For Dummies was his first introduction to formal programming, but Zuckerberg says he learned most of what he knows from talking with friends."
My prior knowledge:
I took a 1-trimester C++ course in high school but learned almost nothing in it (the teacher was very boring). Most of my familiarity with programming comes from playing a computer game in high school that required me to use a language very similar to C++ to create custom scenarios within the game.
Misc:
Emailed the author to see how profitable "For Dumimes" books are; he said: "In general, I would say that computer books are not worth the time to write on a dollars per hour basis. You need to have other reasons to write one."