Newb Alert! ----> BOOGIEMAN

Hey I have a few questions. Well, thousands actually but I guess I'll start with just one or three.

I need some advice on a few things. I took C++ and adv. C++ in college but they didn't teach me anything beyond a cmd prompt. Now I'm tring to get familiar with the Visual C++ environment and learn more about directx or OpenGL(perferably).

1.)Which libraries does MS Visual C++ 6.0 use so that I might learn the functions available to me?

2.) A.)If I program in Win32 apps can it be portable to different Operating Systems?(I'm sure MFC cannot). B.) If not what API should I learn thats not any harder to learn?

3.)Has anyone found a tutorial on the web for designing or programming a 3D world builder or anysort. I know thats way to advanced for me at this point but I want to get a jump on it. (thats me, Jump in head first). :)


;)
Thanks guys,

2.A) Portable to different versions of windows. That's about it AFAIK.

Its been my experience that if you can't write a windows program (as in with an actual window and some other stuff) you'll find it hard to get into DirectX/OpenGL.

MSVC++ can support both libraries, and in fact both have been designed to work primarily with VC++ (esp. direct draw).

My advice would be to learn to write windows applications (especially get used to the message handling ideas) before going to one of those libraries. Charles Petzolds "Programming in Windows, 5th edition" is excellent for this, I'm reading it right now.

Windows programs are not portable (although its possible to use them on linux through WINE/WINEX, but thats not true portability). If you go for a graphics library and portability is a big issue then learn OpenGL, the OpenGL code you use will be portable, but the windows code wont be and will need to be re-written.

You have to know quite well your language before trying to do some non-standard library programming.

If you don't know how Windows works, you won't be able to understand well neither OpenGL nor DirectX, the reason is:
1) OpenGL depends a lot on Windows programming if you want to use the Windows programming advantages; if you want it to be portable, however, you can make use of some other libraries to wrap the OS-dependent part.
2) DirectX uses a subset of the Windows technologies, it's COM. Well, you can learn *only* COM but I don't tkink it is a great idea.

Quote:

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thats me, Jump in head first

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My piece of advice is that you lose that way of thinking.

You include <windows.h> and you get all the WinAPI functions(Windows Application Programming Interface).

Here's a link to The Sunlight Windows Tutorials.

I also recommend the Petzold book.

You can use the WinAPI functions directly (which is what Petzold teaches), or you can use MFC (Microsoft Foundation Class) which is a "wrapper" for the WinAPI... sort-of a higher level library.

One of the reasons that your classes didn't cover any GUI, is because it's not portable. ANSI/ISO standard C++ doesn't have any graphics, mouse, or sound... It only requires a keyboard, a text-display, and disk storage (and a CPU & RAM, etc.) The other reason is that it's a lot to learn. You don't just add a couple of functions to get a window. Petzold's "Hello Windows" program is about two pages of code!

Alright. My O.S. is XPpro but I want to program with true portability between different O.S. couldn't I use Borland with OpenGL or something? I've never even seen a borland compiler and I'm only familiar with MS Visual Studio. How good is borland compared to MSVC++?


And as for Librarys, I guess I didn't specify. I mean to say, what are the standard libraries for MS VC++ MFC & standard Win32. I need to learn my functions.

P.S.
What is a good borland API? What libraries would I use for a borland compiler?

Thanks guys,
Love, peace, and chicken grease!

Sincerly,
The BOOGIEMAN

Well, Borland vs. MS is a long long discussion and you may end up with an entire thread full of stupid remarks in the end, it depends on the opinion of people present...
I will advise that:
1) If you want to have a fast development environment with RAD and all the easy-way to do things, then, take C++Builder.
2) If you want more performances, then take MSVC.
3) If you want .NET compatibility, take MSVC.
4) If you want to do some DirectX *easily* (you can with BCC but it's harder), take MSVC.
5) If you want to do some portable RAD GUI, then take BCC because I believe you can take it to Kilyx without much problems. But I don't use *nix so...
6) If you plan onto using the Intel stuffs later, you have to take MSVC.
7) If you want to do some low-level stuffs, I'd rather take MSVC but this one is a matter of taste, however, if you want to do low-level programming, you are probably a speed seeker. :p
8) And at last, if you want to target Itanium-based computers, you have to take MSVC because you'll need Intel compiler.

About the libraries stuffs, download the Platform SDK at microsoft website, you'd want to have its up to date & complete documentation instead of going to MSDN every now and then. Besides, the binaries are up to date too...
But this SDK is compatible MSVC only.

Under Windows, there are no standard things, just official (that means MS) things and non-MS things.
Well, here's a list of things covered by the platform SDK: (from teh PSDK itself)

Access Control
Active Accessibility
Active Directory
Active Directory Services Interface (ADSI)
Active Server Pages (ASP)
ActiveX Data Objects (ADO)
ADO
ADSI
ASP
Authorization Manager
Automation
Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS)
BITS
Bluetooth
CDO
Certificate Enrollment Control
Certificate Services
Collaboration Data Objects
COM
COM+
Common Controls
Cryptography
Debugging and Error Handling
Device I/O
Dfs
DHCP
Distributed File System (Dfs)
DLLs, Processes, and Threads
DNS
Domain Name System (DNS)
Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP)
EAP
Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP)
Extensible Markup Language (XML)
Fax Service
GDI
GDI+
Group Policy
HTTP
IAS
ICM
ICS and ICF
IIS
Image Color Management (ICM)
Indexing Service
Infrared Data Association (IrDa)
Internet Authentication Service (IAS)
Internet Connection Sharing and Firewall (ICSF)
Internet Explorer
Internet Information Services (IIS)
Internet Protocol Helper (IP Helper)
Interprocess Communications
IP Helper
IrDa
LDAP
Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP)
LSA Authentication
LSA Policy
MADCAP
MAPI
MDAC
Memory Management
Message Queuing (MSMQ)
Messaging Application Programming Interface (MAPI)
Microsoft .NET Passport
Microsoft Agent
Microsoft Data Access Components (MDAC)
Microsoft Interface Definition Language (MIDL)
Microsoft Management Console (MMC)
Microsoft Transaction Server (MTS)
MIDL
MMC
MSMQ
MTS
Multicast Address Dynamic Client Allocation Protocol (MADCAP)
Multicast Group Manager
National Language Support
NetMeeting
NetShell
Network Load Balancing Provider
Network Management
Network Monitor
Network Provider API
ODBC
OLE DB
OLE DB Provider for Internet Publishing
OnNow
Open Database Connectivity (ODBC)
OpenGL
Password Filters
PC Health
Performance Monitoring
Plug and Play
Power Management
QOS
Quality of Service (QOS)
RAS
Real-time Communications (RTC) Client
Remote Access Service (RAS)
Remote Procedure Call (RPC)
Removable Storage Manager (RSM)
Routing and Remote Access Service (RRAS)
Routing Table Manager Version 1 (RTMV1)
Routing Table Manager Version 2_(RTMV2)
RPC
RRAS
RSM
RTC Client
SDO
Security Support Provider Interface (SSPI)
SENS
Server Cluster API
Server Data Objects (SDO)
Service Security Attachments
Setup API
Shell
Side-by-side Assemblies
Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP)
Smart Card
SNMP
SSPI
Still Image
Storage
Structured Storage
Synchronization Manager
System.DirectoryServices
System Event Notification Service (SENS)
System Restore
Tablet PC
TAPI Service Providers (TSPI and MSPI)
TAPI version 2.2
TAPI version 3
Task Scheduler
Telephony Application Programming Interface (TAPI) 2.2
Telephony Application Programming Interface (TAPI) 3
Telephony Service Provider Interface (TSPI)
Terminal Services
Text Services Framework
Unicode
Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration (UDDI)
Universal Plug and Play
Video for Windows
Win32 API
WIA
Windows API
Windows Clustering
Windows File Protection
Windows GDI
Windows Image Acquisition (WIA)
Windows Installer
Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI)
Windows Multimedia
Windows Sockets
Windows System Information
Windows User Interface
Winlogon (and Gina)
WinSNMP
WMI
XML

Have fun learning!

[edit]There are subjects that repeat in the list but I think it is because they have had their name changed and the index keep them there to redirect people who don't know the new name. Besides, they overlap, for example, Windows API covers GDI.

Thanx guys, I appriciate it.