Thread: How good...

Why don't you start trying to make your little games and programs that will make your time on the computer easier and then you can tell us how good you are?

Two different people can read through the Cprogramming tutorials and by the end of it they will have completely different skill levels. There is not much there to judge how skilled you are. If you mean, "How much do I know about C and C++" in terms of syntax, then I'd say the answer is not much. You know the basics... you have a foundation to continue farther, but right now, you probably can't accomplish much and anything you do accomplish you'll discover a much better solution down the line.

Just practice, read more, learn more... you'll be fine, I'm sure.

Learning the language is just the beginning...
What the tutorials won't teach you is how you create your design, hunt down bugs, memory bugs, implementation bugs, threaded bugs, Windows programming, etc, etc, etc.
Also, even if you know the tutorials doesn't mean you know the language. You forget and the tutorials are really basic too. They don't cover very much.

You're just setting your first step into a big, brand new world.

Get a book. Covers much more than an internet tutorial and in much better depth

Or better, get a book, go through online tutorials and if you know someone in the business ply them with sweeties or chocolate to give you a hand when you need it. It works for me.

I'd also suggest not starting with C, C++. C# or Java are much more beginner-friendly in my experience.

[Edit] Also, if you want quick results with a game I suggest writing a text-based one first. Graphics can take more time and can be quite disheartening. Don't try to run before you can walk.

I don't recommend C# at all. It hides too many things from you. When you go from C# to C/C++m you'll be confused.
Pascal I think is a recommended language, at least for learning indenting.
Still, I think going for C++ first is the best of all. If you actually avoid the low level elements (which is possible with C++ but not so much with C), then you'll see it gets a little easier. Then one digs deeper into the language.
It makes sense, but I can't line out a path to do this... Basically you should try to use STL as much as possible and not rely on raw things like pointers and raw arrays.

Anyway. Good luck.

> I don't recommend C# at all. It hides too many things from you. When you go from C# to C/C++m you'll be confused.
I'm just curious if you know enough about C# or education to back this up. Because it is slightly less difficult, suddenly programming in a language is not worth learning. Yeah. Okay, maybe there is more to learn then how C or C++ breaks. If we build high level constructs then people should be able to use them to learn how to program and move on with their lives.

> Pascal I think is a recommended language, at least for learning indenting.
Is that all its good for really? :/ Come on, who needs a whole language to learn how to indent? Idiots do, probably. But most people aren't idiots.

Originally Posted by citizen

I'm just curious if you know enough about C# or education to back this up. Because it is slightly less difficult, suddenly programming in a language is not worth learning. Yeah. Okay, maybe there is more to learn then how C or C++ breaks. If we build high level constructs then people should be able to use them to learn how to program and move on with their lives.

Maybe I was unclear. I meant, I don't recommend learning C# before C/C++, because it will confuse you. The syntax is the same (almost), but the language isn't. Same as learning VB first.

Is that all its good for really? :/ Come on, who needs a whole language to learn how to indent? Idiots do, probably. But most people aren't idiots.

Lots of those "idiots" around here

How on Earth is C# more confusing than C++?

It's not a bad thing that it does a lot of the work for you. It makes your job a lot easier and hiding many of the intricacies of a language allows a beginner to get started and learn programming concepts rather than C++ concepts which is what made it slow-going for me. I only *twigged* when I switched to learning Java. Plus, you don't *have* to move from C# to C++, I wouldn't reccommend it unless you actually need to. I only ever use it for algorithm optimization when I use it at all.

Why make a job harder than it need be?

It depends... if you just want a higher level language, you can stick to C#. But learning C/C++ after C# will be confusing.
I can't give much insight on the issue. I only know that once I used VB and when I tried C++, I got horribly confused and couldn't do much right.

Learning C++ after C# doesn't have to be confusing. You do need to have an understanding of how C#/Java does certain things for you and what those things are. However, there is a reason that every British university I applied to taught Java as a first language and still do and only later introduce C++ and its complexities (if they do at all). It's easier to understand OO concepts using a simpler language.

Stabilisers are necessary when you're learning to ride a bike so you can learn to pedal and steer before you have to learn to keep your balance at the same time.

Sometimes you may be satisfied with stabilisers and not want to get rid of them... just get super titanium ones with go faster stripes and flamy decals.

Yes, but usually you teach the basics first, and then go up. C# is an entirely different language.