[Unfinished] "counter-based loops" tutorial available

[Alf P. Steinbach]

I have to shop Christmas gifts (and clean up... ;-)) before leaving
on Christmas holiday tomorrow, where I'll effectively be without a
network connection until January 6th, so I just posted what I have so
far -- which perhaps you'll find interesting!

This is the third but unfinished part of what hopefully will become a
technically _correct_ C++ newbie tutorial.

<url: http://home.no.net/dubjai/win32cpptut/w32cpptut_01_03 .doc>.

Comments & criticism welcome (post here, please, don't mail).

I'll look at those comments in January -- or perhaps this evening.

--
A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is it such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing on usenet and in e-mail?

[Ioannis Vranos]

Alf P. Steinbach wrote:

I have to shop Christmas gifts (and clean up... ;-)) before leaving
on Christmas holiday tomorrow, where I'll effectively be without a
network connection until January 6th, so I just posted what I have so
far -- which perhaps you'll find interesting!

This is the third but unfinished part of what hopefully will become a
technically _correct_ C++ newbie tutorial.

<url: http://home.no.net/dubjai/win32cpptut/w32cpptut_01_03 .doc>.

Comments & criticism welcome (post here, please, don't mail).

I'll look at those comments in January -- or perhaps this evening.

That is a nice effort and my main comment is why call it win32 in the
first place.
Apart from this, I think that a tutorial aimed for complete beginners
should be as simple as possible, while I think your approach is very
complex for a beginner.
I think you should not try to explain everything for a specific feature
altogether, but introduce simple things for each feature at first, and
then at a second "pass" introduce the more advanced concepts.

In any case, making the tutorial Win32 specific means it is not ISO C++
specific.


--
Ioannis Vranos

http://www23.brinkster.com/noicys

[Sharad Kala]

"Alf P. Steinbach" <al***@start.no > wrote in message

I have to shop Christmas gifts (and clean up... ;-)) before leaving
on Christmas holiday tomorrow, where I'll effectively be without a
network connection until January 6th, so I just posted what I have so
far -- which perhaps you'll find interesting!

This is the third but unfinished part of what hopefully will become a
technically _correct_ C++ newbie tutorial.

<url: http://home.no.net/dubjai/win32cpptut/w32cpptut_01_03 .doc>.

Comments & criticism welcome (post here, please, don't mail).

I skimmed through the tutorial and overall it looks good to me.
Some points though
- You mention Ken Thompson to be creator of C. That's Dennis Ritchie
actually.
- I haven't read the first lesson of your series but have you introduced the
term UB and what it means ? Also it may be a good idea to tell as to what
causes the loop to reach UB (probably in a footnote).
- Do you intend to introduce while/do-while too ? May be just in a couple of
paragraphs.
- I wish the tutorial wasn't targeted only for a Windows user. Else you
could add a few lines for Unix users too wherever you mention Windows stuff.

Sharad

[Alf P. Steinbach]

* Ioannis Vranos:

Alf P. Steinbach wrote:

I have to shop Christmas gifts (and clean up... ;-)) before leaving
on Christmas holiday tomorrow, where I'll effectively be without a
network connection until January 6th, so I just posted what I have so
far -- which perhaps you'll find interesting!

This is the third but unfinished part of what hopefully will become a
technically _correct_ C++ newbie tutorial.

<url: http://home.no.net/dubjai/win32cpptut/w32cpptut_01_03 .doc>.

Comments & criticism welcome (post here, please, don't mail).

I'll look at those comments in January -- or perhaps this evening.

That is a nice effort

Thanks.

and my main comment is why call it win32 in the
first place.
Because the things a tutorial addresses such as tool usage, example
selection and so on are all system-specific.
Apart from this, I think that a tutorial aimed for complete beginners
should be as simple as possible, while I think your approach is very
complex for a beginner.
Perhaps it could be presented in some other way. However the issues
addressed are, I believe, those that a beginner has to struggle with.
I think you should not try to explain everything for a specific feature
altogether, but introduce simple things for each feature at first, and
then at a second "pass" introduce the more advanced concepts.
That's the idea, yes.
In any case, making the tutorial Win32 specific means it is not ISO C++
specific.

?

I'll check any explanation of that in January... ;-)

Have a Merry Christmas!

--
A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is it such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing on usenet and in e-mail?

[Alf P. Steinbach]

* Sharad Kala:

"Alf P. Steinbach" <al***@start.no > wrote in message

I have to shop Christmas gifts (and clean up... ;-)) before leaving
on Christmas holiday tomorrow, where I'll effectively be without a
network connection until January 6th, so I just posted what I have so
far -- which perhaps you'll find interesting!

This is the third but unfinished part of what hopefully will become a
technically _correct_ C++ newbie tutorial.

<url: http://home.no.net/dubjai/win32cpptut/w32cpptut_01_03 .doc>.

Comments & criticism welcome (post here, please, don't mail).
I skimmed through the tutorial and overall it looks good to me.
Some points though
- You mention Ken Thompson to be creator of C. That's Dennis Ritchie
actually.

Thank you.

I always confuse timelines. In _this_ timeline Dennis Ritchie was the
one, yes, building on the B language that Ken made. Grumble...

- I haven't read the first lesson of your series but have you introduced the
term UB and what it means ?
Yes.

Also it may be a good idea to tell as to what causes the loop to
reach UB (probably in a footnote).
I think it would be too much, especially in an HTML version.

- Do you intend to introduce while/do-while too ? May be just in a couple of
paragraphs.
Yes -- hopefully I'll get to that.

- I wish the tutorial wasn't targeted only for a Windows user. Else you
could add a few lines for Unix users too wherever you mention Windows stuff.

Most of the tool usage stuff is very Windows-specific, but so far the
C++ code has been pure Standard.

I don't know how well that will hold up.

Cross-platform solutions exist for most things but those solutions that
are cross-platform are also typically very large and complex, and one
main point of using C++ is to do platform-specific things, which I feel
should be illustrated.
Have a Merry Christmas!

--
A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is it such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing on usenet and in e-mail?

[Ioannis Vranos]

Alf P. Steinbach wrote:

and my main comment is why call it win32 in the
first place.

Because the things a tutorial addresses such as tool usage, example
selection and so on are all system-specific.

It should not cover tool usage. Tool usage instructions are up to the
implementer manual and discussion forums. You could suggest some
particular tool, e.g. Dev-C++ for Windows, but nothing beyond it.

In any case, making the tutorial Win32 specific means it is not ISO C++
specific.

?

I'll check any explanation of that in January... ;-)

In other words, a Linux user will probably avoid this tutorial due to
its name (and may be also due to involving Windows with C++ all the time
in its chapters).

Have a Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you too!


--
Ioannis Vranos

http://www23.brinkster.com/noicys

[Ioannis Vranos]

Alf P. Steinbach wrote:

Thank you.

I always confuse timelines. In _this_ timeline Dennis Ritchie was the
one, yes, building on the B language that Ken made. Grumble...

The history of C++ is as follows:
BCPL by Martin Richards (in 1960s)
B by Ken Thompson. As Dennis Ritchie notes:

"it is BCPL squeezed into 8K bytes of memory and filtered through
Thompson's brain."

C by Dennis Ritchie, which later became ISO/IEC 9899:1990 standard.
C++ by Bjarne Stroustrup, which later became ISO/IEC 14882:1998 standard.

C++ which with few exceptions (meaning differences), retains C90 as a
subset.
A nice document of history up to C is this by Dennis Ritchie:
http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/chist.pdf

--
Ioannis Vranos

http://www23.brinkster.com/noicys

[Ioannis Vranos]

Ioannis Vranos wrote:

B by Ken Thompson. As Dennis Ritchie notes:

"it is BCPL squeezed into 8K bytes of memory and filtered through
Thompson's brain."

Thompson is also the creator of Unix.


--
Ioannis Vranos

http://www23.brinkster.com/noicys