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[Sir Pseudonymous]

Basically, but you're being rather informal about the whole mess.

It's been years since I had to do a formal proof (in geometry my junior year of highschool).  Even in calculus it was just a matter of getting an answer to what was asked, never providing a formal proof for something.

[Mindmaker]

It isn't a conscious process, it's just natural.

That's the problem.
Not everyone can learn and be succesful at programming.

[ChairmanPoo]

It isn't a conscious process, it's just natural.

That's the problem.
Not everyone can learn and be succesful at programming.

Such pretentious comments tend to irk me. In fact, that brought me a flashback of someone telling me something simmilar, about a different subject

[ILikePie]

I'm sad that all of the C++ tutorials for beginners that I have been looking at are useless.

Take this and mess around with it. You can also read this tutorial if you like, it looks nice.

[Medicine Man]

I'm sad that all of the C++ tutorials for beginners that I have been looking at are useless.

Take this and mess around with it. You can also read this tutorial if you like, it looks nice.

Heres the problem. I don't know how to program at all. When I see #include <iostream>
using namespace std;
int main () {
  int a,b;
  cout << "A = ";
  cin >> a;
  cout << "B = ";
  cin >> b;
  cout << "A + B = " << (a+b) << "\n";
} It might as well be in Chinese.

[Sir Pseudonymous]

The tutorial should be explaining to you what that means. If it's not, then it's a retarded tutorial, and you should find one of the thousands that's not.

Code: [Select]

#include <iostream> //Tells the compiler to use the iostream library
using namespace std; //Something to do with the importing, can't recall the specifics because I don't use C++
int main () { //Declare the main function, which will be automatically executed when the code is run
  int a,b; //Declare two local variables of type integer named a and b
  cout << "A = "; // Send "A = " to the console
  cin >> a; // Read input from the console and put the value in 'a'
  cout << "B = "; // Send "B = " to the console
  cin >> b; // Read input from the console and put the value in 'b'
  cout << "A + B = " << (a+b) << "\n"; // Send the text "A + B = " to the console, followed by the value of 'a' plus 'b', trailed with a newline
} // End the declaration of the main function

[Medicine Man]

I don't know what an Iostream is. I don't know what it means by a and b points. That's probably why the tutorials are making no sense.

[Virex]

Code: [Select]

#include <iostream>  //Includes the iostream library, which is used for the most basic input and output. It provides facilities like cin and cout which can be used to read something from
                           //the keyboard and write something to the console window that pops up when you run a program.

using namespace std;  //tells the compiler that this part of the program is in the standard namespace. Namespaces are like areas in your program. Inside a namespace your variables
                                 //all need different names, but you can use 2 different variables/objects/functions with the same name if they are in different namespaces. If you are going to
                                //work with cin and cout, which are the simplest ways of handling input ant output, you want to be in the standard namespace.

int main ()  //defines a function which can evaluate to an integer, is called main and has no input parameters. Any input parameters would have been between the () A C++ program
                   // always starts at main().
{  //Starts the body of the function, in which the code is placed that's ran when the function is ran.

  int a,b;  //initializes two integer variables called a and b. These then can hold any integer between the min and the max for an integer, who's values depend on your compiler,
              //but usually are -2^16 and 2^16 - 1 respectively. Just treat them like little suitcases where you can put numbers in, replacing the ones already there and you can look at
              //what's inside. These variables are local, because they are defined within main. Outside of main you can't access them, just like you can't access your wireless internet
              //if you're in someone else's home.

  cout << "A = ";  //Sends "A =" (without the ", those get removed) to the standard output, which is the console window that pops up when you run this program.


  cin >> a;  //Wait till the user types something into the console window and hits enter, then puts what was typed before the enter into the variable a. So if I would type 14 when this
                 //line comes about, the value of a is then set to 14. If I would type foo, you'd get an error, because we defined a as an integer variable and foo is not an integer.

  cout << "B = ";  // Does the same as the line a bit up, but instead of printing "A =" it will print "B ="


  cin >> b;  //Again waits till the user enters a value for b.
  cout << "A + B = " << (a+b) << "\n";  //This first calculates the value of the sum of what the user put in for a and what he or she put in for b. Then first prints "A + B =", followed by

     //the number it just computed, then followed by a new line ("/n" is the newline character and gets replaced with a jump to a new line). The <<'s are used to indicate that the
     //different parts of the line all have to be passed to the standard output in sequence. You need this because they are not of the same type. (The first one is a string, the second
     //one becomes an integer and the third one is again a string. C++ doesn't let you mix and match different types)



}  //Defines the end of the main function. All code after this won't be ran when the main function is ran.


[Medicine Man]

I only see words and numbers 

[RedKing]

I have an old copy of "C++ for Dummies" floating around here somewhere. That was a good intro book. And I took an online course on it as well. It sounds like you might need something that steps back a bit and deals more with programming concepts before diving into the specific implementation.

I never got far because I first learned programming way back in the days of Apple BASIC and LOGO and Commodore BASIC, which were all procedural languages. Hell, I spent two days trying to figure out where the line numbers were. 

[Virex]

I only see words and numbers 

Sorry for that one, hit post instead of preview. I hope the new explanation explains it better?

[ILikePie]

I have an old copy of "C++ for Dummies" floating around here somewhere. That was a good intro book.

Yes yes yes, the dummies books are highly recommended for stuff like this. Also, you really shouldn't try starting with c++, c# is much more user friendly from what I've seen.

[Sir Pseudonymous]

You mean Python is much better for getting the basics down. While I'm not particularly familiar with C#, I presume I can make the assumption that it's not a radical departure from C++ in style? It just has the added benefit of only running under windows (lol .NET ) and having significantly reduced performance on account of compiling to bytecode run by a virtual machine, a la java, correct? So it's more or less all the bad of C++, with none of the benefits?

Python, on the other hand, is essentially executable pseudo-code, with relatively few idiosyncrasies. The same program in python (2.5, I understand a few things have been changed for 3, but I'm not sure what...):

Code: [Select]

a = int(raw_input("A = "))
b = int(raw_input("B = "))
print "A + B =", a+b

[ILikePie]

You mean Python is much better for getting the basics down. While I'm not particularly familiar with C#, I presume I can make the assumption that it's not a radical departure from C++ in style? It just has the added benefit of only running under windows (lol .NET ) and having significantly reduced performance on account of compiling to bytecode run by a virtual machine, a la java, correct? So it's more or less all the bad of C++, with none of the benefits?

It's just that schools over here like teaching students that have never seen a command prompt C# or Java instead of other things (They used to teach Pascal too, but I understand that that's pretty useless nowadays.).

[Footkerchief]

Once you have that down, just sit down at your IDE and let the code flow through you. It isn't a conscious process, it's just natural. Like speaking or walking.

Maybe if you're doing arithmetic or Hello Worlds.  Otherwise, this isn't true for the vast majority of programmers.