learning Modern C++

[arnuld]

hai all,

i am standing on a "crossroad to C++". I am here in front of you as i
have a problem. i will be brief. Please do not think: "arnuld is sick",
i am really struggling & doing hard-work to become a Modern C++
Programmer & i am feeling as if i am standing on a crossroad. i am
asking because every time i made a decision on my own, in my past, i
always ran into huge wastage of time, money & effort. that is why i am
posting it here:

--Problem-- as you folks know that i want to learn Modern C++ & in my
country "C++ Primer" 4/e & "Accelerate d C++" are not available & being
a jobless person i dont have money to order anything from abroad. i
have these books on my shelf:

1.) "Thinking in C++" 2/e
2.) "C++ Primer" 3/e
3.) "The C++ Programming Language" by Bjarne Stroustrup
4.) An illegal version of "C++ Primer" 4/e as a .chm file on my
Desktop.

i have these 5 options:

1.) read "C++ Primer 4/e" online: cant be done. with online copies
productivity goes down to 20%. reading "physically " really makes the
difference in understanding & learning the language.

2.) i took print-outs of 2-3-4 chapters of C++ Primer 4/e & read them &
found them excellent, though i took a while to understand. it has 800
pages, for me, it means 1000 pages of print outs from my EPSON
dot-matrix in 8 separate folders. it will be very difficult to learn
this way & what if i want to search for some phrase/ideas in C++, i am
"gone" in this case. i speak from experience, i tried this with
"Practical Common Lisp" & trust me, it was huge time wastage with much
less productivity & output (well, that is why Stroustrup created C++
:-)

3.) read "Bruce Eckel": tried that, he makes heavy-use of C. i dont
know C, i dont want to, i want C++.

4.) read "C++ Primer" 3/e: utterly incomprehensibl e to me.

4.) Learn C first -OOA & D book -C++. an excellent way to confuse
myself as i have found that learning "vectors, strings, new-delete"
1st, makes learning "C character arrays & free-malloc" much easier.
(while the opposite is not true, i tried it 2 months ago)

5.) Go directly with Stroustrup: +ve point is i will learn "Pure C++",
-ve point is i dont have any real-life coding experience, hence i found
it *too* dense & 50% of the times i did not understand what exactly he
was talink about. (but i do know what are variables, functions &
classes + strings, vectors, new delete from C++)

from all of this, i concluded Stroustrup is the only way to go. i just
need to dwell into it. what do you suggest?

thanks for your time

- arnuld
http://arnuld.blogapot.com

[arnuld]

Greg Comeau wrote:

Indeed, we're probably way off from the OPs questions at
this point, but COBOL ain't dead.

Ok, i tried both books [ Stroustrup & Eckel ] & finally after much
*work* i gave up. i think i also lack on experience. reverting to my
*unmanaged* bundle of C++ Primer 4/e.

still, i will be here for any comments or advice.

thanks

[arnuld]

arnuld wrote:

Greg Comeau wrote:

Indeed, we're probably way off from the OPs questions at
this point, but COBOL ain't dead.

Ok, i tried both books [ Stroustrup & Eckel ] & finally after much
*work* i gave up. i think i also lack on experience. reverting to my
*unmanaged* bundle of C++ Primer 4/e.

still, i will be here for any comments or advice.

SORRY for multiple-posts. that happened because of the
disgusting-internet connection i have.

[Greg Comeau]

In article <11************ *********@m73g2 000cwd.googlegr oups.com>,
arnuld <ar*****@gmail. comwrote:

>Greg Comeau wrote:

>Indeed, we're probably way off from the OPs questions at
this point, but COBOL ain't dead.

Ok, i tried both books [ Stroustrup & Eckel ] & finally after much
*work* i gave up. i think i also lack on experience. reverting to my
*unmanaged* bundle of C++ Primer 4/e.

still, i will be here for any comments or advice.

You tried both books in what 24 hours? Programming requires
a lot of patience and head banging, even when dealing with some
of the better educational sources.

Anyway, I can tend to "feel your pain". I would suggest
having a look at http://www.comeaucomputing.com/booklist
and seeing which of the "softer" introductions rub you the
right way, making note that many of them are not perfect
either (more inacurracies, especially that never get fixed,
as well as less insights, which IMO are vital).
--
Greg Comeau / 20 years of Comeauity! Intel Mac Port now in beta!
Comeau C/C++ ONLINE == http://www.comeaucomputing.com/tryitout
World Class Compilers: Breathtaking C++, Amazing C99, Fabulous C90.
Comeau C/C++ with Dinkumware's Libraries... Have you tried it?

[arnuld]

Greg Comeau wrote:

You tried both books in what 24 hours? Programming requires
a lot of patience and head banging, even when dealing with some
of the better educational sources.

NO, not 24 hours. i read "Ecekel" for more than 1 month continuously &
trust me "knowing C" is not the prerequisite, the prerequisite is "you
must have programmed in C, for some time, at least"

Stroustrup: i banged my head with this book for 4-5 days & it is really
far-above my head. i feel he is some sort of Software Engineer who has
taken the responsibilty to solve the most important problems/issues of
Soft. Engg (notice i did not say CS). i say so because i *think* one
needs to have "2-5" years of experience of Software-Development besides
C, for understanding his book.

Anyway, I can tend to "feel your pain". I would suggest
having a look at http://www.comeaucomputing.com/booklist
and seeing which of the "softer" introductions rub you the
right way, making note that many of them are not perfect
either (more inacurracies, especially that never get fixed,
as well as less insights, which IMO are vital).

i lurked there & found you mentioned 4 books new to me & none of them
is available in India :-( thanks anyway for the help.

Greg Comeau / 20 years of Comeauity!

i dont know but i want to ask: you are doing programming from last 20
years?

[Victor Bazarov]

arnuld wrote:

[..]
i lurked there & found you mentioned 4 books new to me & none of them
is available [..]

Just out of the blue, unrelated altogether, but I wanted to mention
an old Russian proverb: "He who wants to have things done, finds
a way, he who doesn't, finds an excuse".

V
--
Please remove capital 'A's when replying by e-mail
I do not respond to top-posted replies, please don't ask

[arnuld]

Anyway, I can tend to "feel your pain". I would suggest
having a look at http://www.comeaucomputing.com/booklist
and seeing which of the "softer" introductions rub you the
right way, making note that many of them are not perfect
either (more inacurracies, especially that never get fixed,
as well as less insights, which IMO are vital).

i lurked there & found you mentioned 4 books new to me & none of them
is available in India :-( thanks anyway for the help.

except the one, "Essential C++", sorry i forgot to mention.

i checked ACCU
http://brian.accu.org/bookreviews/pu.../e/e002118.htm but was
not able to come up with anything. what do you say about this one?

[arnuld]

Just out of the blue, unrelated altogether, but I wanted to mention

an old Russian proverb: "He who wants to have things done, finds
a way, he who doesn't, finds an excuse".

do you really expect a novice to understand this:

template<class T>class vec : public vector<T{
public:
Vec() : vector<T>() { }
Vec(int s) : vector<T>(s) { }

T& operator[](int i) { return at(i); }
const T& operator[](int i) const { return at(i); }
};

or this:

int add(CStash* s, const void* element) {
if(s->next >= s->quantity) //Enough space left?
inflate(s, increment);
// Copy element into storage,
// starting at next empty space:
int startBytes = s->next * s->size;
unsigned char* e = (unsigned char*)element;
for(int i = 0; i < s->size; i++)
s->storage[startBytes + i] = e[i];
s->next++;
return(s->next - 1); // Index number
}
i found the following way:

K&R2 C Project Eckel/Stroustrup C++ Project

& trust me it really looks disgusting, C before C++. OK..., what path
you say?

[Alf P. Steinbach]

* arnuld:

Greg Comeau wrote:

>You tried both books in what 24 hours? Programming requires
a lot of patience and head banging, even when dealing with some
of the better educational sources.

NO, not 24 hours. i read "Ecekel" for more than 1 month continuously &
trust me "knowing C" is not the prerequisite, the prerequisite is "you
must have programmed in C, for some time, at least"

Stroustrup: i banged my head with this book for 4-5 days

I gave you the advice to do one page per day, /trying out things on your
computer for each page/.

In 4-5 days you should have completed 4-5 pages; that's not much to
judge a book by. If you have tried to go much faster then you don't
even have 4-5 pages assimilated. Perhaps just the equivalent of 1.

Keep in mind that no-one answering you here, and I include Greg (beg
forgiveness, Greg) and of course myself, consider themselves to know the
complete language, even after years and years of using it, and in Greg's
case, implementing the commercial compiler that most completely adheres
to the standard. And in one sense it's impossible to know the complete
language since new ambiguities, errors, self-contradictions and so on
are discovered in the standard all the time, so really, don't expect to
learn it in 4-5 days: expect to be able to do 4-5 pages, or thereabouts.

--
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?

[Greg Comeau]

In article <11************ **********@k70g 2000cwa.googleg roups.com>,
arnuld <ar*****@gmail. comwrote:

>Just out of the blue, unrelated altogether, but I wanted to mention
an old Russian proverb: "He who wants to have things done, finds
a way, he who doesn't, finds an excuse".

do you really expect a novice to understand this:
...

No. That would be unreasonable. But it would not be unreasonable
to expect a novice to:

1) Get more than one text
2) Be expected to read and reread paragraphs, sections, chapters
3) Go back to earlier chapters for info they didn't grasp first time
4) Try many of the examples gives by the author.
5) Try many of the exercises suggested by the author.
6) Spend hours and hours on it.
7) Take it slow
8) Understand that a tour of something is not necessarily a novice description

>i found the following way:

K&R2 C Project Eckel/Stroustrup C++ Project

& trust me it really looks disgusting, C before C++. OK..., what path
you say?

Personally I don't find it disgusting at all. But it may not be
optimal. Also, K&R can be very hard for many, even those who do
not find it hard.
--
Greg Comeau / 20 years of Comeauity! Intel Mac Port now in beta!
Comeau C/C++ ONLINE == http://www.comeaucomputing.com/tryitout
World Class Compilers: Breathtaking C++, Amazing C99, Fabulous C90.
Comeau C/C++ with Dinkumware's Libraries... Have you tried it?

[bjarne]

Greg Comeau wrote:

i found the following way:

K&R2 C Project Eckel/Stroustrup C++ Project

& trust me it really looks disgusting, C before C++. OK..., what path
you say?

Personally I don't find it disgusting at all. But it may not be
optimal. Also, K&R can be very hard for many, even those who do
not find it hard.

and those of you who are not complete novices may like to read this
paper contrasting the C-first and C++first approaches:
http://www.research.att.com/~bs/new_learning.pdf

-- Bjarne Stroustrup: http://www.research.att.com/~bs