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Hi. I'm new to programming and i'm looking for a book that has alot of sample code (more than the usual textbooks)- is there anything out there like that? Also, are there any good books to read (i've heard of the cathedral and the bazaar, hackers: heroes of..)? thank you.
Sample code is useless if you don't know what it does. For your first book, it would be a better choice to get something with good explanations and very simple code. Really, it's a lot better. There was just a book thread, look here:
http://cboard.cprogramming.com/showt...threadid=40717
Evidently there are also 58617861789148 other threads about it too. (Some reports claim that there are only 98798787, but they are of dubious quality) :D
Most authors are going to keep the examples short. If you were teaching english, you would use single words and simple phrases. Once you know the words and phrases, you can understand, or write longer writings.
Maybe that's a weak analogy, because programs don't flow linearly like good writing... Typically, you can't simply read-through code and understand what it's doing without a fair amount of thinking... maybe flow-charting... research, etc.
The author might use a flow-chart to show how a larger project is programmed. Or, I have a BASIC language book that builds one large program by adding code as you progress through the book.
Some of the more advanced topic-specific books come with a CD with the source code for complete programs. For example, I have a couple of Digital Signal Processing books, and a couple of Driver books that have overwhelming amounts of code on the CDs.
"Programming Windows" by Charles Petzold has several example programs that are a few pages long. But, these too are simple (for windows programs)... they just demonstrate the particular topic of discussion.
I don't know what you're finding in the usual textbooks. If I remember correctly, "Teach Yourself C++ in 21 Days" by Jesse Liberty has examples that are typically one page of code. The programs at the end of each "week" are a few pages long.
If you really want to overload your brain, look-up some of the open-source projects on the web. You'll find plenty of real-world code examples... without any tutorial explainations though.
If your looking for source code you can go to www.pscode.com. this site has plenty of code and also some great free tutorials.
Hey,
I find Leen Ammeraal's "C++ for Programmers -- Third Edition" a good book (ISBN: 0-471-60697-9). Having said this, you must be careful when you pick Ammeraal's books. They are usually quite advanced for beginners (This one is not however!). Nevertheless, he has also posted his examples on his site which might be what you are looking for:
http://home.planet.nl/~ammeraal/cppbook.html
cheers,
Ben
p.s. on the other hand i dont know if spending money and time on buying computer books is such a good idea after all with all the resources available on the net! :)
Some people do prefer having a book instead of a browser, open. But you do bring up a good point.Quote:
Originally posted by Ben_Robotics
p.s. on the other hand i dont know if spending money and time on buying computer books is such a good idea after all with all the resources available on the net! :)