[Miranda65M]

I have recently started in learning c++ programing.

I decided i wanted to learn to program because it was exciting for me and i knew i had some ideas i wanted to put to life, so i have a goal, I just don’t know where to go from there.

In my everyday i work with computers mainly supporting, repairing, and selling. One of my ideas was intended to simplify and ultimately shorten a lot of work with just having a software doing it for us. While they may already be created on the internet i thought it would be a good way for me to start with something, not to mention it gives me the power to make it exactly like i want it to be.

Before i tell you about one of my ideas, i will try to answer one of the questions some might ask right away.

Why do you want to learn c++?

i don’t really have a good answer for this, it was just the first language i started reading about. And it seemed to be a good foundation for learning all other languages.

From my understanding C programing was a older model of the c++ we know today?
i still see some people saying they prefer c programing over c++? maybe you can tell me a little about this or point me to some ebooks.

Anyway, when we support and sell computers, we run a dozen of softwares to either optimize the computers or clean em for eventual virus and other malicious softwares that might have found there way to the users computer. Sometimes we spend hours to clean out computers or repairing windows afterwards. Some might think this is to long to use on repairing such things, but you have to remember many users have there life on the computer and cant lose any data. So we have no other options.

Anyway i want to make a software that runs a series of softwares without user intervention. Making it easy for us to go on with other projects. I got no idea how hard it would be to make a software like this in c++ but i suspect it is quite hard.

Until now i’ve succeeded in learning how to compile what i’ve created and created my first famous “Hello World!” project. Doing so i’ve also read about the different structures of a program. Source files, header files, and so forth. Learned a little about the libraries in c++ as well etc the #include line and why it has to be there.

One of the sources i’ve used to learn is this.

http://www.cplusplus.com/doc/tutorial/program_structure/

i was not really impressed with what this site offered and i left the tutorials with a lot of questions that i felt they should had answered, but that is probably because they expect i already know about it.

But i’ve spent hours reading other sites to.

Any of you have some pointers to go on with my learning?

[Amit]

For your automation requirements, maybe have a look at writing a windows batch or VB script to execute the programs? If the software you use have “batch modes” it will be fairly easy to execute the programs sequentially without intervention from your side.

[SapnaVishwas]

Its old but still relevant

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyVhn0FWWB4

[ShikhaTan]

In any kind of learning it’s great to be sure that you have a good teacher (not a random guide-writing guy on the internet).

And one of the best possible teachers for C++ is the language’s creator – Bjarne Stroustrup.

There is a new edition of his introductory book Programming -- Principles and Practice Using C++ (Second Edition) available, and it looks like a great entry point.
It also includes all the new language features – if you’re new, it’s best to treat the language as a complete package, without dividing into old and new, and that’s just what Bjarne is doing in his publications.

check out:

http://www.stroustrup.com/Programming/
http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Principles-Practice-Using-Edition/dp/0321992784/

[Amit]

The best way to learn is either to have a great teacher, or a really good book.

My suggestion to you is to learn C first, because you will become acquainted with programming principles and even more importantly computer science principles(binary, data, etc)

So anyway this book i have found that no other book matches it in the amount of detail and learning potential it has

It has great exercises to help you understand and learn the concepts it so easily and straightforwardly teaches

If you can get to the end of this book you will have mastered all programming principle basics which you can apply to any programming language in your methods of writing programs

Of course though for what you would like to do you will need to also learn further OOP principles which THEN would be a good idea to pick up Bjarne book because if you have no previous understanding in programming, it will be a puzzle within a puzzle within a conundrum

So it won’t help you learn much at all

and the most important concept of programming is practices, and this book i will link bellow has enough practice to make you sick

Many great exercises to really muster out any doubts and remove any confusion and really take you forward into a world of programming

Now don’t be foolish either there is a lot of things to learn and it takes a lot of time , so take your time

Also for your ideas of the kind of software you want to run which you described is actually quite complex and will need quiet a bit of knowledge to it

But this is the best way to start

There is no book out on the market which is as thorough and profound as this book for programming principles

My major is software engineering, and i have learned from this book most of what i know, even the university courses are not as profound as this book(because they generally rush you through things as they try to cramp in 6 months[1 semester] a tonne of knowledge that people learn over a lifetime ) but nevertheless this is your golden ticket.