#include<stdio.h>

Other than that, try C for Dummies. I'm serious.

C for dummies is really shit, however I did stumble onto this.

http://c.learncodethehardway.org/

Interesting site you've found there. Been trying out Ruby for the first time. Interesting language :)

Now I hope I don't oversleep before DH...

Just google "C tutorial" IMO.

I think starting with C is a good idea. It's easy to do mistakes with memory management even in higher level languages if you don't really know how it works... and C/C++ is where you'll learn that.

Yeah, starting off in C will be good for what I want to do as well, once I grasp C, C++ and C# will be piss because the syntax changes slightly, then I can start messing around in Ruby/Python.

Why are you asking for advice when you already have so many absolutely wrong preconceived ideas?

Vast majority of what you will learn in C, which is a ton of antiquated boilerplate, will have no bearing on Python/Ruby

Learning a base language such as C (Which is said to be one of the easiest languages to learn) I thought I'd have a dabble in it, also considering that Ruby was written off of C, learning the C will in my thoughts make it easier to get in or choose a language that I feel will do what I want it to do.

So unless you can create some amazing new language for everyone to piss about with stopping being such a trollface.

What is a base language? Who says it's one of the easier languages to learn? Who ever told you Ruby was written off of C?

Unless you stop have having absolutely wrong preconceived ideas you're going to waste a lot of time.

Why don't you share your amazing wisdom then instead of making everyone think that you're some superior human who has gone and studied the history of everything related to code predating everything before the computer age as well. You must some immense talent.

Well, being an immense talent that I am, I can sense when someone is asking the wrong questions instead of getting down to the basics. First of all, C came after B and was followed by D. Facebook is using D now, and google is using Go, so what you have to do, is learn C#, which is sad. Then you can play a song, C G C D. C G C D. C G C# D C#.

I thought facebook was first written with PHP and ported over to C++/ C#?

google go or golang was written off of C / Pascal and a few other languages was it not? So how effective would it be writing applications in golang or b (b is dead) Please excuse the questions as I don't want to be writing something in a language that will later on cause difficulties if I were to port them to different types of OS's and have issues with pc firmwares or w/e the case may be. I know each language has it's uses, so just a general guide would be handy.

My thoughts in the end were that most of the popular languages are either heavily influenced off of ANSI/C and learning C would just make things stem a little clearer, again just my thoughts. So I dunno really.

Well, you can't just do C / Pascal. There are different types of languages, but lets say procedural is most popular. In this area, C and Pascal represent completely opposite, different schools of thought, families of languages, and Pascal (Niklaus Wirth) is the better one. The best first question is, why do you want to learn about programming, really? What do you want to do?

For the sake of learning programming, that's my main reason, however since application dev has become so popular in the last couple of years, especially because I'm working in the mobile industry, I'd like to create some apps in relation to this, also being able to create smalls apps for my concepts instead of having to outsource and pay people to do it for me.

For the sake of learning programming, start with Python. You want to learn programming first, not intricacies of hardware or Stroustrups sick twisted mind. Python syntax is arguably the easiest and most accessible, it has the least amount of gotchas and funky syntax.

First read through this: http://docs.python.org/2/tutorial/index.html

But you really learn by solving problems. Try to solve this: http://openbookproject.net/py4fun/tower/tower.html

If you solve it procedural style, try to solve it object oriented style next.
If you don't understand any term, read the entire article on Wikipedia about it. All of the above should take a long time, but a fraction of time compared to starting with a strict, bare, shittily designed language like C.

For 10 players I would expect 1023 moves as the algorithm solves the Towers Of Hanoi in 2^n -1 steps where n is the number disks. So I guess the monks were right that it takes a very long time to play the game with 64 disks. If one move takes 1 second for a person to carry out, this would yield a playing time of about 585 billions of years, which is longer than the universe is thought to exist.

I wonder if the monks learned to count while they were not meditating, or if the subconscious mind could do math during meditation.

Might help to know how things work, to understand what happens under. The current generation of hipster tinkerers with their pythons and processings and what not probably don't.

But yeah, if you learn C you probably don't learn object oriented thinking, which is what c++ is all about, and have to unlearn some bad habits of C probably.

C is basically one step above assembler. Why does it help to know what %esp or stack and heap collision is? I doubt the next id title is going to have a custom memory allocator!!

C is basically one step above assembler.

It's a big step though.

There's definitely a case to be made for getting to the truth of how things work. The higher level the language is, the further away you get.

It's unfortunate that this low level stuff is becoming a lost art. Software nowadays is often bloated and slow. Everyone appears to rely on a small group of smart persons that write the difficult code everyone ends up building off of.

Carmack really made a splash with his lightning quick, highly optimized C that you find in most of his engines.

If you really want to get the absolute best performance possible, lowest latency/highest framerate you're eventually going to have to get your hands dirty under the hood.

Or you can buy a $20 stick of ram !!

Why is it unfortunate? It's delegation. Some people make the engine, other people do the upholstery. No one should attempt to do everything. Engines become complicated and shared between manufacturers. It's completely inevitable and a good thing that with progress we will do more and more stuff, at a higher and higher level of abstraction, bloating up all the available resources. Otherwise these resources would be wasted, and there would be no progress, or angry birds.

Or you can buy a $20 stick of ram !!

Not really an option on embedded systems, and optimization isn't just about memory.

Why is it unfortunate?

It's unfortunate because we cannot make the most out of our diskspace, or our processing power. The hardware gets better and better while the optimization gets worse. Resulting in much less performance gain than there would otherwise be.

Otherwise these resources would be wasted,

Use them in more meaningful ways..

Embedded systems are a special case, just like real time operating systems or proprietary hardware architectures. A smartphones, on the other hand, can have gigs of ram and runs Q3 at 125fps.

We are making the most out of our disk space, our processing power, and our time by concentrating on that which gives the best return on investment.

When we create more powerful machinery, we can do more stuff with it, but to do more stuff with it, we also need to be able to do it faster, and we can use part of our resources to allow us to do it faster. It's a balancing act, and the truth of the level of abstractions is so high, we are better off optimizing software architectures and algorithms. Assembler level optimizations complete nonsense when we run on top of virtual machines on top of virtual processors on top of completely unknown and hidden at this point hardware architectures.

Being sad about the dying art of low level optimization is just like being sad about the dying art of gutting a deer. Let's just say it's a rarely needed specialty that will always have some limited need, but few people should concern themselves with it.

I disagree. I believe there is much to be gained there for those that know how.

That's how it goes though. Each era gains some things and loses some things. Some good, some bad.

What do you gain from knowing how to gut a deer? Sure, you can impress your hunter friends, but really?

I wasn't going to comment on it before since I interpreted it very figuratively, but since you restated the analogy I'll say that I find it rather poor.

The ability to do low level optimizations applies vastly further than knowing how to gut a deer. It turns up in writing device drivers, programming embedded systems, adding features to a rendering engine for a game, reverse engineering programs, creating programs where every bit of performance counts such as in a chess engine, understanding compiler and CPU optimizations (where did that loop go?), and plenty more.

The point of an analogy is to demonstrate a principle, not the precision of the magnitude. As such, it is perfect. If you had to roughly estimate the percentage of programmers doing any of those compared to programmers doing everything else, what would it be? Vastly further? Have you done any of those recently? The chances are much less than 50%

So, the point is that it is a small percentage, a tip of an upside down pyramid that touches hardware and grows wide and tall into all other practical development. It grows wider and taller with progress, and shrinks relatively speaking.

Maybe it's more of an upside-down trapezoidal prism as opposed to an upside square pyramid though :-)

I doubt the next id title is going to have a custom memory allocator!!

I'd say it almost certainly will have, given Q3, D3, and D3 BFG all do. idTech 5 almost certainly has more advanced memory management routines than earlier games, especially in context of this interesting technical note written by MrElusive:

http://fabiensanglard.net/doom3_documentation...l-Note.pdf

(I guess there may be implied <sarcasm> tags which I've missed... in which case, just enjoy the link!)

I guess sTPHN has some hard times head of him!!

It feels as if I need to code a new fps engine with all of these comments about languages and shit.

This is rather misleading. %esp or heap collision aren't C constructs at all, really. Knowing how a stack and heap works certainly does help in any language (well most anyways).

Of course they're not C constructs, but between the popular languages, it is pretty much only C that can be expected to have a direct function call to machine language stack frame correspondence. How does this knowledge help in any managed language? How often does this knowledge help in C?

Knowing and understanding how certain low level operations work can be extremely beneficial. Why would you not want to learn how it works if you're truly interested in programming, even if you don't expect to come across it that often? You could use the source to Q3A as an example of where it'd be useful to know :-)

I guess I'm lucky (or unlucky depending on how you look at it) to work in a field where that knowledge comes into play pretty often.

"it is pretty much only C that can be expected to have a direct function call to machine language stack frame correspondence"

Can you explain what you meant here?

I found it way easier to learn Python than C. Python was really easy to get into, and even though i learned all the basic concepts i thought was required, i had a hard time understanding some concepts of C.

I'll give Python a go as well. :) I know bits and pieces but I just want to solidify my skills in a certain language and learn them as I go.

almost the same here.
started with C++ having a hard time understanding it
python was way easier and in the end helped me understanding C++ better

starting with something easy getting to the difficult is the best way to learn in most cases

script kiddie your whole program using free demo source http://www.codeproject.com/

being a proper coder is`nt worth it, all the functions and macros changes in every OS`s SDK and just bores you if you can find anything todo with what you want on MSDN

Script kiddy is the lazy way out, I refuse to pay someone to code something I know I can do if I just take 3 months out to just grasp the languages.

Do you also refuse to pay for a dish that would only take 3 months to learn to cook?

Your comparison is hilarious.

Something about you being a cock.
I'm sorry my English is terrible. :(

learn English before programming :P

It's pretty difficult staying fluent in 4 languages already :<

swahili doesnt count as a language.

English, Dutch, German , Cantonese and a bit of French, I'm amazed that you know Swahili is a language though, have a plus! :)

you speak chinease?

crazy motherfucker.

My GF is Chinese, She speaks better English than me haha cause she's from London.

hmm... if shes from london, isnt she brittish?:>

Born in the UK so yea british but she's chinese, stop making things sound so difficult lol. :D

britcheese :P

Plus if there is a dish to cook that takes 3 months then there is seriously something wrong with your culinary skills.

Did I say to cook or to learn to cook?

if your not going to pay, you wont want a book... all the main functions and macros have demo source, to open file select boxes, and add new menu`s and buttons

the rest are child classes, you can find another library else where if you just do c++

if you script kiddie a program together it all grows on you if you stick with it

if you learn by a book, you get bored, get nowhere, and have to stick to the OS you learnt on for the rest of your life

You have an actual bullshit generator for this don't you?

get visual studio express http://www.visualstudio.com/en-US/products/vi...express-vs

all the basics are listed on http://www.learncpp.com/

stick to visual c, you can import external dll`s etc and use the functions insteal, download c++ class libraries and use them etc etc etc if you want binary socket protocols and whatnots and good blowfish encryption

I did last use VC when version 6.0 was newish, but I have since moved onto greener pastures.

most IDE are just posh notepads, and dont have the "objective" class droplists

Wait until he writes one in PHP and share it in a reply.

If you used a markov text generator for for p0rt posts, I don't think I could tell the difference.

Why C as opposed to C++?

C > Objective-C > C++ > C# etc etc.

why do you think that

Well you can do that.....
But in general it's easier to learn C# followed by possibly C++ and then leave it at that unless you want to do embedded stuff (in which case you might just start with c and never change... but well that's kinda up for debate I guess).

its easier and better to learn c++, all the classes you need already exist, for text and protocols etc etc etc

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bk77x...10%29.aspx

c++ just lets you write your own, or download others, and the build filesize is the smallest and c++ will be 20kb, and .net will be 2.3mb

and if you code your php, c++ is easier

CString text;
text.Length();

c++ is all

const char* text;
int length = strlen( text );

You do know that C++ in VS is not considered to be C++ right?
The difference between C# and C++ has been so minimized in VS that you can't really differ between the 2 without going into details.

If you buy a book on how to write C++ it'll not use VS at all and you'll be guessing what which errorcode means. (it's notorious for crappy error messages)

C# is like the kiddy version of real C++. It has sane error messages and you can't mess around as much with pointers/references.

I do heavily prefer C# over (the real) C++ though because it's faster to debug/write code in :D

c++ is c++ and what makes programs cross platform, most c stuff and .net are frameworks

if you use visual c, its just a front end to c++, you can use c++ anywhere you like, or just use a visual c class if you cant be bothered

How can you make a comparison like that if you just asking for a book recommendation on C?

it's probably the order he's gonna learn them, not comparison

Maybe I should have written it like;

1.) C
2.) Objective-C
3.) C++
4.) C#

How can you make a comparison like that if you just asking for a book recommendation on C?

That's a misconception. It's like saying hammer > pliers > screwdriver > wrench etc etc. Each tool is the most adequate depending on the job you want to do.

I think you'll need to read again.

No, I think you should learn to express yourself clearly.

I work pretty well in illustrations, so maybe I should bust out my colouring book and illustrate to you the order that I'd like to learn these languages in? :D

Maybe you should "draw" your arrows in text using --> instead of just >, since that denotes inequality relationships...

I forgot esreality is full of critical thinkers.

In a thread about learning to program? Of course:

http://www.calstatela.edu/faculty/rpamula/cs101/cs101skills.htm

I think C++ is a good start too, because it has a lot of C in it already, but would make a decent springboard into the other languages.

No matter what you will have to put in the skullsweat, the question is where to put it to gain the most ability from your time.

Anyways for C, cprogramming.com has some excellent resources, and book recommendations: http://www.cprogramming.com/books/c.html

Thanks for the link, will check it out Lorfa. :)

I assume you're planning to make the next big arena fps that will save us all correct?

It could be the new guy id hired to replace John Carmack.

or it could be JC trying to learn C

hahaha

ur totally priceless in this thread.

that's /thread right there.

Settle down

Why would I waste my time doing that when Quake 3 is still the best?

I think you should skip c and pickup Pascal instead, much better if you want casual programming.














:>

:S

What are you intending to do? Why C? Otherwise any high-level language is more rewarding and have a lower threshhold for beginners.

It's going to be a bit of OS development as well as app design for ios/mac os, so jumping straight into objective C would be a bit silly if I'm not 100% familiar with C would it not? I know there's not much to learn in C but it's pretty versatile code if you going through the whole hardware > firmware > operating system > application process.

I Would say, althouh c is fun, you wont need to learn c before objective c. Learn objective c and what you need to learn about c Will come when you need it.
In programming i think you should start the Easy way if you are a beginner at programming.

In ios you Will have to use the framework that apple give you in 99/100. Since your app Will run in a sandbox, you wont be able to do what you want with all the hardware.

In osx, it Will be more useful but you get a long way with frameworks that other people have made. If it's used commercially you can't use everything though, the you have to do it yourself, thus needing some c.

go for Python :P

I would pickup another language first, like python. I know for myself it was much more encouraging to use python and actually make things happen then it was to twiddle bits. If you liked the style of learn c the hard way, try learn python the hard way.

HTML > C

u tried.

clueless teenager makes thread about programming then shoots down everyone's response in typical teenager fashion pls delete thread from the site and my memory thx

Clueless teenager? You need to check yourself there son. I asked for any recommendations regarding C, others have also suggested trying C#/C++ and Python, so gaining a bit of insight and a semblance of direction to follow, so get off your American superiority act and gtfo of my thread, You came here, It was your choice to click on this, If you reply with hostility I will return it. I bid you a good eve there sir.

The book 'The C Programming Language' by Kernighan and Ritchie is considered the definitive C bible. You could also just look up the standard and use that. I believe the last draft was n1570.

if you want to learn C learn C. if you want to learn C++ learn C++. if you want to learn Ruby learn Ruby. why do people make these imaginary barriers for themselves?

this is one of the best books for C http://www.amazon.com/dp/0672326663/

Thanks dude, will check it out as well.

Kochan's 'Programming in C' would be my suggestion as well.

Once you feel familiar with C, I recommend that you move on to 'The Practice of Programming' by Kernighan and Pike. It contains a lot of precious knowledge in a couple hundred pages, but is nevertheless very straightforward and readable. There's a good overview here:
http://lwn.net/Articles/293037/

How about this book?

http://www.amazon.com/Focus-Programming-Quake...193184156X

(actually, I was never really convinced that mod coding is really a great introduction to programming, but hey, I made the amazon page so I don't care ;) )

Anything will help, I know the basics of most languages but it's just where I want to spend a bit of focus on.

If you know basics of most languages, I think you need to decide what you want to do (gamedev? web? shit? OS? android? blabla?)

Than, choose language best/most comfortable/blabla for you to reach the goal.

imo more important is to start thinking as programmer than just learn some code language. Probably every language will be good for a start.

http://www.wikihow.com/Learn-a-Programming-Language :P

Remember to pray to satan with every code line, and than everything will allright ;)

Yeah, guess I should just pick a language that will be good enough for what I want it to do, I just don't want to get stuck if I have to change things for it to work elsewhere, which is a pain. So I guess any C language would be good for what I'll be doing as It'll be for OS and ios dev for the mean time.

For C, I heard that 'The C Programming Language' by Kernighan and Ritchie is must have.

Also heard that
Stephen Prata books are good.
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=...en%20Prata


But my choice was Python :P

IMO, programming is about several different things:
1. the ability to understand and express the flow required to reach a goal, considering all the permutations
2. the ability to describe that flow in a structured language
3. having the knowledge of a particular problem domain to quickly guide you towards appropriate solutions

1 is what programming is really about, and what you need to practice to get good at it. It doesn't really matter what language you're using, or what problems you're solving.

2 is just about learning the syntax of the language you're using, and being able to work efficiently with the tools for that language.I think this is a small part, IMO. I would stress the tools aspect though - learn to use a debugger and make good use of code navigation tools.

3 comes with time and experience working in the same field. This is what separates eg a 3D engine programmer from say the programmers writing Photoshop. It's just knowledge gained through experience solving related problems, and seeing the solutions created by others in the same field.

That book will hopefully get you to see examples and think about the flow necessary to reach the goals set in the book (ie, helping with 1), and that experience should get you more familiar with the syntax of C. But it's probably a bad place to start if you're not that fussed about Q3 modding and would rather work on an iPad...

tl;dr - pick something you want to code, and get on with trying to do it. Don't worry about which language

Well it's all about problem solving, being able to think logically to get things sorted. This post probably made the most sense, it's like playing quake, people are always asking what mouse he/she uses, accel or no accel.

tl;dr. Do it, fuck it up, fix it, learn. So for me, I think it'll just be c/c++ until I fuck it up and learn other ways of doing a particular thing.

I usually rephrase 1. a bit into "having the ability to look at any problem and reduce that into a set smaller problems untill it's so easy that almost anyone can solve each small problem".
This is more what programming feels like to me hehe :)

This book looks great. Considering how old it is do you think I will have issues going through it?

I've always had an itch to look under the hood to try and understand and appreciate how the game actually works. Especially as the id series of games are few that I love the feel of.

I'm going to make my way through an introduction to C before attempting what you've suggested. Can you recommend anything else?

It was written before Q3 was GPL'd so it only sticks to the confines of the mod codebase - but that should be fine for someone who is a beginner, as you really don't want to be fiddling with things outside of that anyway as you can be pretty certain you're not going to understand the renderer etc.

I don't know how useful the book actually is - I read it in the context of already knowing how to code Q3 mods, but it seemed OK to me. Obviously it has to skim over lots of things and only show some examples, but might get you into it and give you a feel for how things work. One of amazon reviews seems to suggest that it perhaps presents too many copy pasta examples, so stick to the advice I used to give people back in the day - never ever copy and paste code from a tutorial unless you understand what it does, and why it goes where you're pasting it.

Following that same tip, there are plenty of similar online tutorials at code3arena, which seems to have been archived here: http://www.quakewiki.net/archives/code3arena/ - this isn't as structured as the book ofc, that is just a collection of "look what I figured out how to do" tutorials from people who may or may not know much about programming.

With both code3arena and the book, be aware that some tutorials were written before the final Q3 point releases were released, so the code they're telling you to modify may have moved around a bit (ie, line numbers won't be reliable), so stick rigidly to the "understand it first!" rule. Some tutorials on code3arena don't give you enough context to understand it though.

Also this site is nice for a quick code lookup of the ioquake source:

http://ioqsrc.vampireducks.com/main.html

Otherwise I end up having to jam all the files into an IDE. That has the benefit of allowing me to run searches and what not, but it takes a long time to load.

It does not really matter which programming language you learn first because you will learn how think as a programmer in every language. C is not easy to learn.

Get K&R and leave ESR.