#9 in Microsoft programming books
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Reddit mentions of The C++ Programming Language: Special Edition (3rd Edition)
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Reddit mentions: 17
We found 17 Reddit mentions of The C++ Programming Language: Special Edition (3rd Edition). Here are the top ones.
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This is an ignorant, pointless post. I'd like to share with you the unreal engine documentation, and some standard industry software docs, and a book on C++. I'd invite you to learn these and join an indie team if it's so easy, cheers!
I am actually going to try to be helpful, in stark contrast to the rest of the comments. You actually want to learn two things C++ and the C++ STL, because the STL is the way to actually get work done with C++ these days.
The vast majority of my college classes were in C++, so I have read several computer science textbooks aimed at C++. The least bad of all the ones I have personally used was Understanding Program Design and Data Structures with C++ by Lambert and Naps. It is the textbook that My Introduction to Computer Science I class used back in the day. It is a serviceable into to computer science book; if you new to computer science it isn't too bad, if you are familiar with comp sci then the book should all be trivial but a good way to learn the language. It is kind of old but the basics of computer science haven't really changed since the 1970's anyway so it doesn't matter [Amazon link]. Lambert and Naps seems to have a newer C++ book out, I don't know anything about it; if it is a newer edition or a different approach or what [Amazon link]. The nice thing about the older one is I can vouch that it is okay, and you can get it really cheap used through Amazon.
Bjarne Stroustroup is the original creator of C++. His book, The C++ Programming Language, is a very good and very thorough overview of the language. Be warned though, it reads like a dense college textbook, mostly because it is a dense college textbook [Amazon link].
The other really essential one is The C++ Standard Template Library by Plauger. Stepanov, et al.; Stepanov is the creator of the STL [Amazon link].
My favorite STL book is actually The C++ Standard Template Library: A Tutorial and Referenceby Josuttis. It is a lot more readable [Amazon link].
Remember, the STL is there to be used, and it hasn't sucked since the late 90's, so don't go around making your own string classes and stack classes, except when you are playing around to learn C++.
Also the Boost libraries are really good now too, but it didn't really exist when I was doing C++, so I don't have any idea what is a good book for that.
Good luck! I just gave you about a year's worth of reading material, but at the end you will be a well-qualified C++ newbie.
Steps to build your own engine from scratch with no knowledge:
Note: Most people who decide to put together a voxel engine take about 2 years from inception. At the end of the two years, they will have a library they could use to create a game. They've also already made it through the first 4 steps when they start.
Without a degree program to solidify the concepts, I suspect that the first 4 steps will take at least 2-3 years: about 10-20 hours per week each week.
This might suffice
> Standard C++ and the design and programming styles it supports owe a debt to the functional languages, especially to ML. Early variants of ML's type deduction mechanisms were (together with much else) part of the inspiration of templates. Some of the more effective functional programming techniques were part of the inspiration of the STL and the use of function objects in C++. On the other hand, the functional community missed the boat with object-oriented programming, and few of the languages and tools from that community benefited from the maturing experience of large-scale industrial use.
I remember that he discussed the idea in the C++ programming lanugage book, but I cannot find the right passage on the interwebs.
My own opinion is that it doesn't matter so much what books you use, especially with Google available to answer questions and provide supplementary examples. Some might be a bit clearer or a bit less, but you're going to get to the same place if you keep writing code and practicing those skills regardless of what you're reading.
If I wanted to learn to program in a given language these days, I'd probably just Google for "<language> tutorial" and start going...maybe bounce among a couple until I find one that's clear. The books I learned C and C++ with were written decades ago and are probably out-of-print.
I'm very dubious that college is the most effective way to learn a language. My experience with college classes is that a class will teach you general concepts, and you more-or-less pick up the language yourself (you'd need to to get the assignments done). Computer science courses will teach you things that are nice to know, like time analysis, but they aren't necessarily the best way to get someone up and running and writing code. I personally think that people tend to do better when they get to explore the things that they're unclear on. The professor might lead you to some important concepts that you might miss, but you don't need college classes to pick up programming, and I'd encourage people not to wait for said classes and hope that they just transform them into a programmer.
Note also that there are a lot of ways to program in C++, and these produce very different-looking programs.
const...and using iostreams).newanddeleteshow up.Throw in templates and the STL showing up or not showing up, and you've got a fair number of "languages" that fall under "C++".
My only recommendation is the one I use for trying to learn any new subject that I want to know well: get at least two books or sources on the subject and go through them one after the other, since you'll probably get a better idea of the material after having seen it in two different lights (and if one description of a particular point isn't clear, you have a second one to bounce to).
There is one difference among books that I would say is meaningful, and that's that some books combine teaching C++ and learning to program and others deal just with C++ as a language and are intended for programmers (sometimes programmers that already know the language). If you want specific book recommendations, you might want to give a sort of idea of what background you're coming from (e.g. do you program at all yet?), because the sort of thing that, say, a junior C++ programmer would use to brush up on his C++ is a bit different from what I think would probably make a good "introduction to C++ for non-programmers" text.
The last "brush-up" book I bought was Stroustrop's The C++ Programming Language, which taught me that I didn't know the language as well as I thought I had. This is probably behind-the-times enough now that something else is better for brush-up. If you want a "beginning programming" book, looking for something that has "learn" and "c++" in the title is probably a good heuristic.
To date, the best programming book that I've read is C Programming Language by K&R. It's a pretty complete text on the C language. It is more than sufficient to enable the reader to be a good C programmer, yet it is still entirely digestable by new programmers. It is 274 pages. There are some recent gems, like Programming Clojure (304 pages). However, these days the norm seems to be more like Applying Domain-Driven Design and Patterns: With Examples in C# and .NET (576 pages), Real World Haskell (710 pages), and The C++ Programming Language (1030 pages). These books are all good. They just are hard to carry around and hard to hold while reading for long periods. I'm looking for good programming books that are short; an upper limit of roughly 325 pages. Post links to your favorites!
First, be prepared to write code that sucks and is unmaintainable for a while. (This could be months or years.)
If you only know Java, then you'll need some C concepts. In particular, you need to become familiar with pointer arithmetic, avoiding buffer overruns, and manual memory management. (C++ has ways (RAII) to make manual memory management less error-prone, but you still need to understand what's going on.)
To learn the basics of the language, read The C++ Programming Language, Special Edition, by Bjarne Stroustrup.
Read a lot of things by Herb Sutter and Andrei Alexandrescu. I particularly recommend Modern C++ Design and Exceptional C++; I'm sure others in this thread can give you some good suggestions.
Finally, start writing code, and get it critically reviewed by someone who really knows C++. (I've known 2 or 3 such people in my career; they exist but are the exception, not the rule. Look for people who can explain all the things I listed, and more.)
(Edited to add The C++ Programming Language.)
Read books. It might be boring, but a lot more informational than watching a youtube video.
If you already know how to program in another (preferably OOP) language there's The C++ Programming Language or C++ Primer if you want to learn C++11 (not to be confused with C++ Primer Plus, which is a different book 'series')
If you don't know how to program and you want to learn C++ for game development there's Beginning C++ Game Programming, which starts at the beginning (variables are one of the first things explained). After that book you should read up Introduction to Algorithms to make sure you're not writing horrible inefficient programs. Then there's Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software to teach you more about certain patterns used in programs design (needed when using Ogre3D for example. Ogre3D was 90% magic to me until I read about Design Patterns. :p As alternative to DP:EoROOS there's Head First Design Patterns, but it's Java-centric which is a whole other beast than C++.
After those books there's this Stackoverflow thread. Read the first answer (the gigantic list of books). The thread used to be a ton of comments (with the most votes comments on top), but all anwers got copied to the first comment, so it's all sorted on votes. Code Complete (2nd edition) was the most upvoted one, The Pragmatic Programmer was the 2nd most upvoted one, etc.
Then there's this Stackoverflow thread, which is more C++ centric.
I hope this helps :)
Once you finish that, you will be ready to program in C++. The next step is to get a deep understanding of C++. For that Bjarne Stroustrup's "The C++ Programming Language" is the best. These are the only 2 books you will need... a quick-start book and a get-deep-understanding book.
Of course, after reading those 2, there are plenty of other good books that you can read to hone your C++ skills, learn more about STLs, etc.
Ignore the people who are stating that learning c++ is some daunting, difficult task. It isn't. If you have learned mathematics, you will be able to learn c++. Both are languages used to convey reasoning. Mathematics and C++ both have grammar to follow and rules for turning some statement into another -- you won't find things very foreign if you look at it from this perspective.
Also, you should avoid videos and such, and just go start writing and compiling C++. You need a good starting point for the language of course, and the core material usually recommended is The C++ Programming Language by Bjarne Stroustrup.
The rest of your reading material should be reading well formed c++ code. Read the source code of popular, well documented projects. Read the Boost libraries, read the source of Qt, read as much C++ as you can get your hands on. Try to understand it. If you find something you don't understand, go look it up. Ask other programmers about it.
Take things in small chunks and if you get overwhelmed just take a step back a bit and write something simple that you can grasp. Create small programming problems for yourself to solve and play with them -- do the same things you did while you learned mathematics.
can't go wrong with K&R C to learn the low level stuff (pointers) first, then The C++ Programming Language to learn the rest
>Java and C# are retard proof in that if you screw up, you get a descriptive error message and possibly the line it occurred on. If you screw up in C or C++, you get a magical crash and no information other than 'oh there was an access violation.' And it won't say 'access violation.' It will just give you an error code. Without memory management, you have a lot less to worry about and virtually no chance of your program continuing in an inconsistent state and producing completely incorrect results (which you may not know are incorrect).
How does the fact that C++ gives less descriptive error messages automatically make C++ programmers better? One's ability to debug past vague error messages and confusing language features says nothing about one's ability to write efficient and maintainable code. In fact, it might say exactly the opposite - using a tool that slows you down with vague errors and confusing features when better tools exist means that you'll get beaten to market by someone who doesn't have debug arcane error codes and undetected access errors.
>You won't find anything similar to this in Java or really any other language. If you come across an object you don't know about in Java, what do you do? You search a reference for information on the object. If you come across some syntax you don't understand in C++, what do you do? You can't very well put that line of code into Google and you have no idea what the term for it is.
Well, I'd look it up in the index of The C++ Programming Language, but I take your point. However, I fail to see how this is an advantage that C++ has over Java. Confusing syntax is something to be generally avoided.
Based on my own experience:
Next, tackle on STL specific stuff
http://www.amazon.com/C-Programming-Language-Special/dp/0201700735
Start at the front, work to the back.
I would recommend saving the money and learn from books. As said before most employers don't care about certifications and if they do, you probably don't want to work there.
The C++ Programming Language is written by the inventor of C++ Bjarne Stroustrup and arguably the best introductary book out there.
If you already know core programming principles by heart i would recommend Accelerated C++ .
Do you have any programming experience?
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Intro CPP Books
Dietel's C++ How to Program
Oreilly's Practical C++ Programming
Language Reference
C++ Programming Language
http://www.amazon.com/C-Programming-Language-Special/dp/0201700735
Other Useful Books (understanding C++ better)
Inside The C++ Object Model
One thing I cannot recommend a lot is, buy a book on whichever language you'll start out with. If that is C++ I have this one: http://www.amazon.com/C-Programming-Language-Special/dp/0201700735/ and I like it, granted I don't have much to compare it to other than a Java book from school, which is terrible in comparison.
Also, C++ isn't a bad place to start, although I would say it's a hard place to start, if you want something a bit easier, I'd recommend Python (don't know it myself, but I see it recommended by others all the time), Java or C#.