Maximum PC

Hi, this is my first post! I was wondering if someone could help me. I bought this book for programming in C++, and it says that after I learn that, I have to learn how to program in windows. I'm kinda new to all this stuff, and I was wondering if someone could recommend a programming language to learn for building nice, functional programs.


Oh yeah, if you work with notepad a lot, consider editpad lite. It's free, and offers tools that notepad doesn't. You can get it at...well, search for it on Google.

You don't have to

C++ is a widely-portable language: every platform I've ever used has a compiler. Hell, every platform that I've heard of (that wasn't one of the small projects in development) has one.

You can stick with regular int main() and int main(int argc, char *argv[]) if you so desire

Get away from Microshaft. Program under a Linux environment. Once you get a taste of the non-Bill Gates Is My Daddy paradigm, you'll be able to see the full strengths and weakness of each programming platform. After an evaluation, go back to Windows if you like, but IMHO programming for a winblows platform sucks.

Another reason to learn it under a POSIX compliant system is that your code will work across more platforms.

As an added bonus, the _BEST_ compiler out there right now is completely free. It is known as gcc.
http://gcc.gnu.org/

Kybo: Who is that chick in your avatar?

I get asked this a lot. I have forgotten now, but I posted it sometime before. I'm sure a search would bring up the name.

In general, a good rule of thumb is use the standard libraries that come with a language whenever possible and employ platform specific libraries as a last resort.

If you want a nice editor, try scite - http://www.scintilla.org/SciTE.html
it has syntax highlighting for a crapload of languages, and has a fun code collapse feature, which essentially presents the option of hiding lines within the beginning and end of a scope.

There's also crimson editor, which has projects and stuff. check www.devzoo.com for a list.

http://lab.msdn.microsoft.com/express/
free stuff rocks, the visual studio compilers are free, and perfect for learners. Get the C++, and VB for most general purpose stuff.

http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/download.jsp
the download for java with a nice ide called netbeans.

those are prolly the 3 biggest, not including web stuff

java and c++ are very similar, now while java is easier to start with, C++ is an industry standard with higher capability, albeit, less ease.

VB is great for making a GUIs, and in general, that's the way it's used. You can make full programs in it, but a lot of software is done using VB for a frontend, to a C/C++ backend.

C++ is a fun language to learn, however, unless you want to do some serious WinForms programming, you don't need to learn Windows programming. If you just want to stick to basic console work, you're fine learning whatever it is you're learning but for forms programming, you have to learn the API for that.

For now, don't focus too much on GUI programming, learn the language first. There's this article I printed out about proper C++ programming - most books don't teach you the Stroustroup method (more like his suggestion), here's an article that describes it (it makes more sense when you understand C++ quite well):

http://www.artima.com/intv/goldilocksP.html

Anyhow, other fun languages are Java, Python (not my fave, but it is quite fun), and C#. You can do a lot with Java - it has its own GUI objects for Forms programming, it has JDBC to connect to databases, it has Tomcat/JSP for web scripting and servlet apps, it can do Applets for the web, and it's a computer science language (my prof uses Java Applets to test out his AI stuff). Java's my favorite of all these because of it's flexibility. However, I wouldn't turn my back on C++ either.

Well first I have to agree, you should first learn to program, you can learn how do that under any number of languages, but if you want to learn a functional language, C++ is a half descent start.

Now if your ultimate goal is to program for Windows, then learning C++.net will be the way to go. Because most books will start you out with standard console applications and basic file I/O, until finally in the later chapters introducing you to ADO.NET, and Windows UI programing.

Now personally I think the most important thing to learn is simply how to program, once you have a programing mindset, it's easy to pick up new languages.

Ok... I think everyone has repeated the same thing enough now. =)


I don't believe you meant 'functional language' in programming language terminology, but just in case (and to be clear for others), C++ is not a functional programming language. Lisp and Scheme are examples of functional programming languages.

I mean functional, as in something he may actually use in a career, I started with Basic, and Pascal, both depreciated languages. He may not program ANSI C++ in a work environment, but he may program Visual C++.net, C#, or Java, all languages based on C++ or very similar enough that he could get up and programming with little trouble.