Thread: New to Cprogramming

Hi all,

To become more familiar with a board I always introduce myself. I haven't found a general thread to do this, but I'm sorry if there was one.

As a start: I'm a 22 y/o male from The Netherlands. Personally I'd like to describe myself as a creative person with too many ideas or too less time. I've got a degree in chemistry and got too many hobbies to name. The hobby I currently have for most of my free time is ant keeping. i.e. having ants as pets.

I've always had many ideas which needed some (good) programming. Being inspired by many independent developers lately, I'm thinking of learning real programming now. I've looked in the pro's and con's of several programming languages, mainly Java and C++ and came to the conclusion C++ matches my needs mostly. I should be considered completely new to programming. The closest thing I did to programming was making websites with PHP. As a result, I've got some (minor) experience in OOP. I'm also experienced in SQL, but probably can't use that for my current projects.

I'm hoping to learn C++ with this website, already read many of the tutorials and I had Code::Blocks installed for some code testing. Once I got to somewhat more advanced tutorials, CB didn't seem to suit my needs, being too simple (I guess). Now, I've got Visual C++ 2010 Express as IDE, hoping this will help me. And of course I'm hoping the nice people at this forum can help me. :-)

Welcome

Once I got to somewhat more advanced tutorials, CB didn't seem to suit my needs, being too simple (I guess)

I'm quite curious to follow a C++ tutorial for which you found C::B insufficient. Can you point to it ?
Also, the compiler you're most probably using C::B (mingw) which is the Windows port of gcc, can't be called insufficient from any angle.

> A lot of kids back then collected stamps, pin badges and even paper napkins. Can you believe that?
Well, my hobby is quite unknown to most people, indeed, getting a lot of surprised reactions. It does seem to be gaining in popularity in my country. Ofcourse some of my hobbies are computer-related, but most of them are not, luckily. For my job I use the computer all day long and sometimes I do wish not to sit in front of this screen showing chemical structures and such. lol. I literaly grew up with computer. I even made my first website when I was around 8 years of age (ok, WYSIWYG, but still..).

> What worries me is when you said you have no time. Good Lord, it will only get worse.
Well, I've been living mainly on my own for the past few years, only spending time with my parents in the weekends and holidays. Currently I've got a full-time job and buying my own house. So the lack of time is mainly at the moment, when all has settled in some months, I will be able to spent several hours a day extra to my hobbies. My pets don't require that much time, though. They suffice with a once per week feeding and once a month adding water. They don't take up that much time, wouldn't it be for the forum I'm moderating on this subject. :-)

for C++ coding, code::blocks with mingw is one of the preferred platforms

I found it easy to work with and was appealed by its simple looks, but the lack of documentation scared me off. For instance I tried installing (?) GLUT to C::B in my complete naivety and found it to be troublesome. But this probably is mainly because I'm very unfamiliar with the software. Regardless of it being completely premature to even try to do this. If C::B is this much recommended by you, I will keep on using this along with the MinGW compiler. I assume C++ is the same language regardless of the compiler and I should just learn to work with C::B. I like the open-source and independent environment of these initiatives, opposed to controlled software such as VS. Microsoft doing their own thing is a known bug in that company.

Very many thanks to the helpful welcome I've received today, it is very nice to see this forum is still very active and has some very assisting members. I will try to obtain some of the books described in the links you've supplied and start reading. I will follow this forum as well, I might learn helpful things in the meantime. :-)

Originally Posted by wnieuwstraten

Regardless of it being completely premature to even try to do this.

Maybe this will work.

It was much simpler to set up in my linux distro though ( just had to put /usr/include as its residence).

Don't confuse library documentation with the IDE documentation. The latter is not responsible for the former. If anything could be lacking on this case was GLUT documentation.

Yes, of course, I was however expecting more people to have experienced the problems I had experienced. I found only little information with my current knowledge.

Originally Posted by manasij7479

Maybe this will work.

It was much simpler to set up in my linux distro though ( just had to put /usr/include as its residence).

I did find this walktrough and used it as my main lead, but it did not seem to work properly after about 2 hours of trying. I signed up for this forum the next day.

Originally Posted by wnieuwstraten

I did find this walktrough and used it as my main lead, but it did not seem to work properly after about 2 hours of trying. I signed up for this forum the next day.

..O..
It is probably too outdated then.

btw.... Did you try compiling a program using glut(&&OpenGL) from the command line to see if you've got the correct and complete library ?

Originally Posted by wnieuwstraten

I found it easy to work with and was appealed by its simple looks, but the lack of documentation scared me off. For instance I tried installing (?) GLUT to C::B in my complete naivety and found it to be troublesome. But this probably is mainly because I'm very unfamiliar with the software. Regardless of it being completely premature to even try to do this. If C::B is this much recommended by you, I will keep on using this along with the MinGW compiler. I assume C++ is the same language regardless of the compiler and I should just learn to work with C::B. I like the open-source and independent environment of these initiatives, opposed to controlled software such as VS. Microsoft doing their own thing is a known bug in that company.

Very many thanks to the helpful welcome I've received today, it is very nice to see this forum is still very active and has some very assisting members. I will try to obtain some of the books described in the links you've supplied and start reading. I will follow this forum as well, I might learn helpful things in the meantime. :-)

If you are just now starting the learning curve, I would suggest you don't try extending or modifying the installation... work through a good C++ textbook first ("Thinking in C++" is a good one) and get the hang of writing your own code before you even think of messing with third party libraries... Believe me you will do yourself no favours making this more complex than it needs to be...