jayme

I am sad to say, I will be leaving this community for a few days/weeks/months. I'm not sure how long I will be, not like it really makes a big difference. When I come back, I will be a changed programmer. I am taking a break from all projects I have been working on and all questions I might have been preparing to ask, to do a bit of studying. My moms used to actually program in C++ so she has a few books lieing around, I asked a couple people at my work and they said they would bring a couple in if they could find any, I asked the computer science teacher at the school I went to last year and he said I could use some of his extra books and I am not very proud to say, but I have downloaded 2 books off emule(newer books) because most of the books I am recieving are older and I don't have any extra money to be buying programming books with. All in all, I will have about 19 books to read, a lot of the books I will be reading the same things over because how different can 5 intermediate books on general C++ programming be, right? I am doing that because then it will for sure get stuck in my head.

I will be back for the occasional lounge topics and I'll still be on irc but I will probably leave the programming scene for a bit, or as far as the "learn from experience" programming goes, since it didn't help me as much as it could have. Anyways, good luck to everyone on whatever they plan to accomplish, was fun while it lasted while I was here in my "nub" state, but it's time to move on, perhaps even answer peoples questions with the correct answer. See you in a few weeks(probably).

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tempest

You'll be back, I don't quite understand the premise of taking some time off from here to learn programming -- but I wish you the best of luck nonetheless.

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Klipt

Good luck, and remember - reading on its own doesn't help (unless you have a photographic memory). Read and play, read and play

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Yarvin

yeah... I don't know what leaving to learn to program is ganna do to help.... best way to learn is by trial and error and when that error happens (trust me it will) then thats where we come in also if your into c++ check out http://www.cprogramming.com killer tutorials for C/C++ and the Message board is awsome.... thats where I first learned to program.

anyways no matter what your decision is I wish you the best of luck

ivan

I think other people are right, programming by experience is the best, but that is your decision. Good luck!

Infinite Recursion

I agree, trial and error is the best approach.
IF you find a way to shake the PFO addiction, let us know.

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King

I think if he reads these books and practices the stuff in them as he goes along it will make him a better coder. And then when he decides to do a project there will be less trial and error on the basics. Don’t get me wrong, trial and error is a great way to learn, but its good to start with some experience and have a good concept of the basics before diving into a bigger project.

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clsk

I'd say one good book. And ignore the older books. Remember that the c++ standard was drafted in 1998 and confirmed in 1999 IIRC. So books older than maybe 2000 are out-of-date with the standard. One book people recommend alot is Accelerated C++. I've never read it myself but I've heard alot of good things about it. The book I used to learn C++ was Thinking in C++ which is even free online from the author's website.
You will need to practice as you learn. Just reading the material will bore you and drive you out of it. So just write trivial programs that don't do much but that will help you understand the topic you're reading on your book. Maybe doing the exercises on your book will help you.

crazykid48x

I tried this once. I planned to take a break on programming practice and just read books. I picked up 2 books on c++, one on directx and one on opengl. I studied for weeks and I didnt code a single line. All in all I got frustraded and didnt learn a thing. Practicing programming is where the real learning takes place, because you do have to learn by trail and error.

If i am right about what I just said, you didnt learn anything from my post, becaused you only read it. And you will go on and read books for weeks and learn by trail and error that that probly wasnt the best way to spend your time. Good luck!

King

All you people who are saying trial and error is the only way to learn, and books don't teach you anything... Well you are wrong. OK so you wan't to code up a program using sockets... but you have no clue how to use sockets, your going to have to read a book or an internet page to find out how it is done, then practice it. Telling this kid not to read books is retarded. Read the books and then practice what you learned from them.

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