Platform problems - advice about equipment.

[drspock]

Hello Board,

I am literally two hours new to C++ programming. I am going down the self taught route as I don't have the funds for an expensive course.

I currently use Mac OSX and it has its own compiler and editor. Am I creating more work and possibly causing future problems with coding using a Mac based OS or should I just pick a cheap laptop up?

Any advice would be grateful.

Regards and hello all!

Dr.S

[matsp]

Should be fine if you make sure you set the "-ansi" switch in the compiler settings. That will force the compiler to only use standard variants of functins and no extensions that are compiler specific. If you want the compiler to be REALLY picky, add "-pedantic".

C++ is a portable language, and as long as you are using a standards based book (see the book recommendations thread for books), and you don't start going into graphics programming [which by the way is non-standard anyways, but the principles are pretty much the same for all graphical variants - just that functions and mechanisms are called differently). However, for the first part of learning to program, you really should be doing non-graphical programming, so it shouldn't make much difference what OS or platform you use for your training at that point.

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Mats

[cpjust]

I am going down the self taught route as I don't have the funds for an expensive course.

Dr.S

I would think a doctor would afford it.