Thread: Guidance needed

Originally Posted by Swoorup

I don't know if I can, but just want to learn it too and get off with VB.

There is this phrase that comes to mind: jack of all trades, master of none. You risk falling into that category if you don't focus your efforts. Being jack of many trades and master of a select few would serve you better.

Originally Posted by Swoorup

And is it similar to C? If it is, then won't it help me in learning C?

Yes, learning C# could help you learn C, but it could also hinder you, because ultimately C# is not C.

Originally Posted by Swoorup

Does not matter though.
@laserlight I don't know if I can, but just want to learn it too and get off with VB. And is it similar to C? If it is, then won't it help me in learning C?

The only thing that is going to help you learn C is to learn C...

You're wandering around like a drunken choirboy here. You're not going to learn *anything* by trying to learn *everything* nobody can even remotely hope to do that. You will find yourself in a much better place --and job-- if you learn one thing and learn it well.

Per the old saying: "A man who knows parts of everything, nows all of nothing."

I think that ASM, linux and C are all related to each other very much, so learning one would help me learn the other at the same time.

Tell you what... print out a couple of pages of your beloved VB source code, then print out a couple of pages of properly indented C and a couple of pages of ASM... tack them up on a bulletin board... stand back 10 feet... do you see any resemblence?

Trust me... all you are doing is confusing yourself to the point where you'll never be any good at any of them.

Focus on C, and keep that focus until you feel confident with it. As everyone has said, that is going to take more than a few months.

I don't think there is much real practical value to ASM...maybe you could lay off that.

Originally Posted by Swoorup

Here is an example: I used to see some codes containg _cdecl ,_stdcall or fastcall.
Then I said to myself what the hell, why is that hard to learn. Then I went through ASM, and I got to know its just the standards of calling convention or the way parameters are passed.

Sure, but you can look thru code and find all kinds of mysterious API calls. Does that mean you need to learn every single API? I guess it depends on the context. In what level of detail? It's great you have taken an interest in assembly, but how much of it do you think it is necessary to know? For what purpose? Are you going to sit and write applications in ASM? I don't think so. I'm sure it is interesting. Learning about transistors and logic gates is interesting too, but unless you plan on engineering microchips, the information does not seem not particularly useful. It may give you some insight into how higher level languages like C work, but you don't need to be proficient with it. Focus on C Make good use of the forum here. Even if you don't have a question, periodically have a look at new threads and try to follow what is being discussed. You can interject a question into someone else's thread. You can put forward an idea and find out how people with more experience feel about it. It's a great place to get feedback and pick up good habits.

Learning ASM is so much helpful, especially in RE.

Ok thank you guys. I don't have internet connection time and often to look up MSDN, but I will be asking any problem I encounter in learning C or ASM too. Mind if you can tell me where can I download the MSDN visual C++ library permanently to a hard drive?

And yeah, I am very much interested to know how the computer works (Mainly how a processor processes opcodes).Can you give me a few pointers?

Again thanks a lot guys.

EDIT:Why my post did not get formatted with carriage return? EDIT EDIT: Don't bother about this sorry.

The SDK is too huge. A little description would be helpful. Whats the difference between MSDN and SDK documentation?
I have been using gcc compiler from DEV CPP software.
I use command line to build though. Should I switch to?

EDIT:Thank you for recommending Pellas, especially the reason its designed only for C and its easy to use.
But the debugger could have done better. I can't jump to an address directly

Originally Posted by Swoorup

The SDK is too huge. A little description would be helpful. Whats the difference between MSDN and SDK documentation?

The Windows SDK is essentially MSDN on a disk.
Trust me on this... if you don't have the space to install the SDK you won't have enough space to do much software development...

What are you using for equipment?

EDIT:Thank you for recommending Pellas, especially the reason its designed only for C and its easy to use.
But the debugger could have done better. I can't jump to an address directly

No you can't go directly to an address... however you can set breakpoints in your source code and have it run the program up to the breakpoint.

On 32 bit projects...
Project -> Project Options -> Compiler -> Debug Information -> full.
Project -> Project Options -> Linker -> Debug Information -> CodeView & Coff

On 64 bit projects...
Project -> Project Options -> Compiler -> Debug Information -> full.
Project -> Project Options -> Linker -> Debug Information -> CodeView

Now you have source level debugging.

There's an addin available from Pelles C forums that adds 3 buttons to the tree view for Release, Debug and Profile versions of the code. You probably should install it as a convenience.

Also look in the help file... In fact, spend some time familiarizing yourself with it's contents. There's a ton of useful information in there. One of POIDE's best tricks is to put your text cursor on a keyword or library function and press F1 for help. Works for every function in the library. Also on the Forums is a download link for the Windows 98 SDK that can be hooked into your help menu and then searched with F1 for windows API call information as well. (This gives you about 75% of what's available on Win7, but you still need the SDK to have the most up to date information)