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wtd

Tue Nov 01, 2005 1:26 pm


A tutorial: the beginning

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If there is any merit to continuing this, please let me know.

So you want to learn C++?

I'll tell you something up front.  C++ is a big, complex language with lots of very subtle ways to screw up, and the tools aren't going to provide much of a safety net.

You may want to learn C++ because that's what all of the games you play are written in, and because C++ programs can be really fast.  Yes, these things are true. Guess what, though?  It doesn't matter.  If you're a novice programmer, still learning basic programming concepts, C++ makes learning them much harder than it has to be.  It'll be hard enough without using tools that go out of their way to confuse you.

You should be looking elsewhere.

What do you need?

Ideally, you should be using a *nix-based OS, like Linux, *BSD, or Mac OS X, but since most of you are likely using Windows, these directions will be tailored to you.

Gandalf's excellent Hello, world!

The classic beginning.

#include 

int main()
{
   std::cout