NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #31/NN_1992_31.iso/spool/comp/lang/cplus/18647

Internet Message Format | 1993-01-03 | 3.2 KB

Xref: sparky comp.lang.c++:18647 comp.lang.c:19149
Path: sparky!uunet!pipex!bnr.co.uk!uknet!mcsun!sun4nl!and!jos
From: [e-mail] (Jos Horsmeier)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++,comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Newbie Wants Advice on C-Programming
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 3 Jan 93 10:14:04 GMT
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
Followup-To: comp.lang.c++
Organization: AND Software BV Rotterdam
Lines: 57

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Bjarne Stroustrup) writes:
|
|[e-mail] (Jim Lynch @ Netcom Online Communications Services (408-241-9760 login: guest)) wrote
|
| > >You should always start out with the official books:
| > >
| > >For C, it is _The_C_Programming_Langauge_ 2nd ed. by Kernighan & Ritchie
| > >For C++, it is _The_C++_Programming_Language 2nd ed. by Stroustrup
| >
| > No no no no no no no no no no no no. These books are _unreadible_ to a beginner.
| > However, they can be quite valuable as a reference (whenever you get around to
| > learning how to read them...)

|It is worth remembering that `beginner' means different things in different
|contexts and what `unreadable' means depends critically on what kind of
|beginner we are talking about.
|
|If by `beginner' you mean `someone who approaches programming for the first
|time,' you are almost certainly right (though I have heard of exceptions to
|that rule). If, on the other hand, `beginner' means `experienced programmer
|who just happens never to have encountered C or C++ before,' you are with
|a high propability wrong (though again I suspect a few exceptions could be
|found).
|
|The backgrounds and expectations of want-to-be C or C++ programmers seem
|infinitely varied and textbooks, approaches to teaching, and advise must
|try to take that diversity into account. No one approach or one book can
|cover all angles.

I think there's a bit more to leaning C++ than there is in learning C.
C++ uses quite a different paradigm: the object oriented programming
approach. Here at my company, they made me volunteer (with a gun pointed
to my head ;-) to teach the programmers team the concept of object
oriented design and programming. My first attempt was using your book
along the line of explaining inheritance, polymorphism, data encapsulation
etc. etc. We ended up discussing the misty details of the C++ language.
I completely failed here. My second attempt was, not using any programming
language at all, but just a clear explanation of the object oriented
concepts and mechanisms. When all that was clear, we switched to C++.

This approach was much more fruitful: the C++ language became just
a mechanism to express these object oriented mechanisms. I kept on
convincing these people that it doesn't matter _how_ you express these
concepts, as long as the language offers you the building blocks to
express them. IMHO there are tree types of `beginners':

- First time programmers;
- Experienced programmers but still unaware of the OOD concepts;
- Experienced programmers aware of OOD concepts, but they don't know
  anything about the C++ language.

I think that one has to be a beginner of the third kind to be able
to learn the C++ language successfully.

kind regards and happy new year,

Jos aka [e-mail]