Re: Programming Tomes was [Dev-C++] Question of the day

[Ian C. S. <ic...@st...>]

On 18 Oct 00, at 17:58, Matthew Hickson wrote:

> Hello,

Yello 'gain.

>       Yes you are right, I checked my book again, \a and \b are very close together, it was my
mistake. I am using the book Object-Oriented Programming in C++ Second Edition, it's quite old
(Copyright 1995) I got it for $9 at a used bookstore : )
> I love those kind! 8-)

As does everyone else :)

> I pick up just about everything I find.  I figure, some are good, some are definitely not;
however, they all look at things from different perspectives, and sometimes something that's
greek in one book is clear as day in another.  (Even if some of those books start to look a
little long in the tooth!)

I agree - I have a tonne of books for operating systems and language 
combinations that I'll never use in my lifetime. However, the 
concepts and techniques used in them are always helpful (usually, in 
most hard-core language books, there will be always functions for 
basic encryption, etc).

> Recently (on another list) a war started over the value of books (ie. the 21 Days compared to
college / university texts).  I agree that some of the 21 Day/Dummies/Idiot's guides are surface
material, I find them helpful when I want to check out a topic.  I then start to delve a little
deeper, and then I look for resources online (about language style, the ins and outs of a
language, etc.).

That is what I do. From various people (relatives, fellow students) I 
have a number of those 21 days books. Personally, sliding into C/C++ 
was a breeze using an e-copy of C++ in 21 days. (I had a mainly Java, 
BASIC and Pascal background.)

I believe that one should get one of those books if one is a relative 
newbie to that area. Going directly to online resources is okay for 
some, but you end up getting swamped with information and documents 
that you don't need and potentially will never use.

> Speaking of which, does anybody have any good links to C++ related material?  Particularly
good object-oriented source...  I've poked around, but most of what I find seems to relate to
DOS level C graphics/demo programming.  

Umm... you could try www.objectcentral.com and perhaps 
www.cprogramming.com

www.vitaminc.com ? I can't remember the address of that one. 
Unfortunately, the university rendered all bookmarks redundant and 
therefore I can no longer access the hoard of links that I once had.

> My background is rather VB, and sources that I've found nice are things like
www.planetsourcecode.com

I'll be sure to try it.

> (They've got some stuff for other languages, but nothing "meaty" ... for an example, check out
the Delphi section!)

You find that a lot... and I hate sites which have trillions of 
links, and only a handful which actually work. If someone is going to 
put effort into a site, they should at least attempt to check all 
sites within a suitable period (e.g. once a month).

Places like www.progsharehouse.com (? - Sorry if the link is dead) 
are very much like that, unfortunately.

Ian