EPTImo. Don't waste your time in C
Just like, if you were starting with engineering and wanted some background. Don't start with html, learn c++ or java or algorithms at least. Leave html for the tools.
Learning C/C++ from beginning? - Page 2
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Cloud
Sexico5880 Posts
Imo. Don't waste your time in C Just like, if you were starting with engineering and wanted some background. Don't start with html, learn c++ or java or algorithms at least. Leave html for the tools. | ||
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EsX_Raptor
United States2802 Posts
There's no better book than that one to learn C. | ||
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SilverSkyLark
Philippines8437 Posts
You can do a whole lot more stuff with C++ as compared to C. | ||
CTStalker
Canada9720 Posts
learning C++ is a waste, because it's such a terribly designed language. the feature set is massive, and having to manually allocate memory in a language that deals with high-level concepts like polymorphism is really stupid. that's my incredible bias, anyway. i know google uses c++ a lot, and if you want to work with directx or opengl, you'll need it. but if you want to program for the web: it's a waste of time. and proom, jokes like that stopped being funny like 8 years ago. gc and the jvm have come a long way | ||
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spitball
Australia81 Posts
On January 21 2010 23:56 CTStalker wrote: how is learning C first a waste of time? lol. if you learn C you'll have no problem picking up java, python, javascript, actionscript, ruby, etc etc. and if you learn lisp, you'll actually be able to take advantage of the functional features of those languages, like closures and other first-class jazz. I think what they mean is if you plan on learning C++ then you shouldn't think of C as some kind of stepping stone. Anyway, if you don't end up going with C++ then I would recommend either Python or Ruby. I think both are good languages to start with. | ||
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Cambium
United States16368 Posts
Effective C++ Hands down. | ||
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Adeny
Norway1233 Posts
On January 21 2010 23:56 CTStalker wrote: how is learning C first a waste of time? lol. if you learn C you'll have no problem picking up java, python, javascript, actionscript, ruby, etc etc. and if you learn lisp, you'll actually be able to take advantage of the functional features of those languages, like closures and other first-class jazz. learning C++ is a waste, because it's such a terribly designed language. the feature set is massive, and having to manually allocate memory in a language that deals with high-level concepts like polymorphism is really stupid. that's my incredible bias, anyway. i know google uses c++ a lot, and if you want to work with directx or opengl, you'll need it. but if you want to program for the web: it's a waste of time. and proom, jokes like that stopped being funny like 8 years ago. gc and the jvm have come a long way C will teach you java better than C++? What are you drinking son, first of all the syntaxes are relatively similar and won't give you any problems. Second of all, OOP. Nowadays I see no reason to learn C unless you're dead set on building OSes, in which case, learn C++ first anyways then downgrade to C. Until you get to learning OOP in C++, you're pretty much learning the exact same thing as you would be learning in C anyways. Just learn the basics of C++ and then take it from there. | ||
2Pacalypse-
Croatia9527 Posts
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CTStalker
Canada9720 Posts
edit: actually i re-read the OP, and it sounds like he's just interested in learning programming as a hobby? if that's the case, object-oriented programming won't mean a dang to him anyway | ||
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spinesheath
Germany8679 Posts
The book by Stroustrup probably is a bit hard if you are just starting, but depending on how much Java you actually know it could be enough. I strongly advise against learning C before C++. At least don't spend more than a month on it. You WILL pick up bad habits and it'll be hard to get rid of the C mentality and into object orientation. You will write bad C++ code if you start with C. I'm talking out of my own experience and know several people who had/have that problem. Because the languages are so similar syntactically you will have a hard time switching your progamming mentality. C++ is not harder to learn than C. Any decent C++ book/tutorial will still teach you how to do imperative programming (like C) but it won't go into detail as much as a C book would. There is not too much to gain from purely imperative programming anyways (large imperative projects are almost unmanageable). After some time I found the c++-faq-lite which imo is a really great source if you got a decent understanding of the syntax and want to get a proper C++ mentality. All the reference sites are nice and all, but after reading this faq my C++ immediately became MUCH more clean and efficient. Read it. C++ isn't very useful if you don't have to worry about performance. Pick any of the garbage collected and well portable languages if you don't need performance. | ||
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celeste
England45 Posts
learncpp.com is also a really nice site for learning, the author answers virtually every question made in the comments  I really hope this thread doesn't degenerate into an argument over which language to learn | ||
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dinmsab
Malaysia2246 Posts
On January 21 2010 23:19 Cloud wrote: c/c++ how to program by deitel&deitel. Imo. Don't waste your time in C Just like, if you were starting with engineering and wanted some background. Don't start with html, learn c++ or java or algorithms at least. Leave html for the tools. I've learned c++, java and c with Deitel books. Would totally recommend those. | ||
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raylu
United States6 Posts
On January 21 2010 19:02 Marradron wrote: For what purpose ? You might as well learn c# or something like that. seems a bit more advanced than c++ What are you talking about? C# is certainly newer, but not more advanced. I second the recommendation for K&R for C. That said, if you're only interested in programming as a hobby and are only interested in developing on Windows, C# is probably a better choice than either C or C++. | ||
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JiYan
United States3668 Posts
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QuickSandSlowly
China95 Posts
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gumbum8
United States721 Posts
Say I'm a programming n00b. The best I've ever done is making a guessing game with numbers 1-20 in python. My goal is to make fun or useful programs with programming, not necessarily full fledged games, but just useful programs that could serve some general purpose on my computer. Anyone have a language recommendation? | ||
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Slithe
United States985 Posts
C++ is far too bulky and cluttered for a beginner in my opinion. I don't think you'll gain much by learning C++ unless you have a specific purpose or reason for using it. If learning through books isn't your cup of tea, the lectures for the introductory CS courses at UC Berkeley are available via youtube. The first few lectures of CS61C go over basic C concepts. Also, as a Berkeley grad I'm obligated to recommend learning Lisp/Scheme first, in which case you should go through the CS61a series of lectures. | ||
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Aim Here
Scotland672 Posts
with clean syntax, and because it's popular among developers, there are now plenty of libraries that allow you to do almost anything you like in python, including some fairly popular programs - most bittorrent clients I've ever used have been written in it, for example, and civ4 used it as the main scripting language. It doesn't hurt to learn a few other languages, anyways, to see how the rest of the world lives, but you've started off well! | ||
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uberMatt
Canada659 Posts
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spinesheath
Germany8679 Posts
On January 22 2010 04:20 Slithe wrote: I think learning C is much better for gaining good fundamentals and understanding basic principles of programming. C++ is far too bulky and cluttered for a beginner in my opinion. I don't think you'll gain much by learning C++ unless you have a specific purpose or reason for using it. I would suggest a hgher-level language than C if all you want is a good understanding of basic principles. Java, Python and the likes probably would be good choices. With C, you'll most likely just end up doing tons of low level stuff, which doesn't teach you a lot of important concepts. Getting good at pointer arithmetics and typecasting is all nice, but it's no basic principle of progamming. If you start C++ properly and make extensive use of the Standard Library, it isn't bulky/cluttered imo. If you mix imperative and OO programming it indeed is messy. | ||
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