5 ms·

I've always found online docs to be a little bit lacking. Used to be, if you bought a compiler like Visual C++, it came with a book (printed on paper) that was

I've always found online docs to be a little bit lacking. Used to be, if you bought a compiler like Visual C++, it came with a book (printed on paper) that was readable and useful and helpful. Then they started migrating that content on to the web. Then they started auto-generating the web content. Then they started auto-generating some of the web content. Now if you want to learn how to use a product, you have to shell out $60 of your own money for a book that describes it.

maxxxxx 7y ago
I started programming in the 90s and then I often would read the documentation like a book. Usually it was well written and really easy to read.
- pjmlp 7y ago
  That was my introduction to OOP, Turbo Pascal and later Turbo C++ manuals.
- jonhendry18 7y ago
  I would plop down and read the fat volumes of the NeXTSTEP General Reference.
jeroenhd 7y ago
I remember downloading the Visual Studio 2008 documentation and installing it locally on my PC. The docs were well put together and integrated neatly with the IDE. This stopped when they switched to a new offline help viewer (probably for valid reasons but still) that just didn't work well enough to replace the old one for me. That being said, most Microsoft documentation is still top notch once you use Google (or god forbid, Bing) to find the right article. I can see improvements to readability and accessibility of the site every once in a while but I kinda just want to the old docs back. They contained a beginners guide that didn't require clicking around a bunch of links to avoid the video tutorials, for example
Crinus 7y ago
> Used to be, if you bought a compiler like Visual C++, it came with a book (printed on paper) that was readable and useful and helpful. Some time ago i found a copy of Borland C++ for Windows 3.1 in its original box on eBay. The box was actually a cube and inside 99% of it was books, including references and guides for everything as well as Petzold's book for programming Windows. Sadly the cost was too much for me, but it was incredible how much documentation Borland provided (although that box was most likely an outlier, other Borland products like Delphi had more regular boxes, but still came with several books). Having said that, in Visual C++ at least since Visual C++ 6 there wasn't much printed documentation - although the dual CD MSDN docs it came with are golden.
- raverbashing 7y ago
  Ah yes the "good times" Too bad Visual C++ was much, much clunkier than Borland C++, it was not even fun. But true, the amount of good info found on those CDs was amazing.
  - Crinus 7y ago
    Depends which versions we're talking about and if with "Borland C++" you mean the Borland C++ or the later C++ Builder. I'm going to guess the former. I have actually both BC5 (the last version that was released as "Borland C++" with the IDE going back to Win3.x times) and VC6 installed and have used older versions of VC sporadically. Visual C++ pre-VC6 was indeed clunky although i'm not sure about why as i haven't used it much, but i remember it not feeling very polished. However with VC6 Microsoft pretty much made the C++ IDE and is why even today most C++ IDEs (e.g. KDevelop, Anjuta, Code::Blocks, CodeLite, etc), many IDEs in general and even some code editors have the same basic UI layout and features. VC6 is a standard and really the only thing you may miss is tabs in the editor (but there is an addon that adds exactly that). BC5 is a nice IDE and actually, unlike VC6 (or any later version, including VS2019) is a really Iintegrated DE - the compiler is part of the IDE (you can even compile some code just by opening a text editor window and start typing code in, no need to save a file or anything, the compiler picks the source code from the editor's memory). It is also very extensible, using a C-like scripting language with dynamic typing that can access most of the IDE's features and (AFAIK, never tried it) you can write DLLs to extend the language's functionality. Personally i've only used it to modify some shortcuts from their Brief-like defaults to Windows-like defaults (e.g. Ctrl+S for save instead of -IIRC- Ctrl+K Ctrl+S...). The node-based project management also looks powerful, especially since i think you can extend it, but TBH i didn't use it much again. UI-wise it is an evolution of the original Turbo Pascal for Windows IDE they introduced with TPW 1.0 which itself was a sort of GUI evolution of their classic Turbo Vision-based IDEs introduced in TP6. TBH i do not find either of those to be too clunkier compared to the other, but i find VC6 to have some of an edge UX-wise. Previous VC versions probably will be worse though. Now if we're talking about C++ Builder, then yes, even BCB1 blows both of these out of the water.

maxxxxx 7y ago

I started programming in the 90s and then I often would read the documentation like a book. Usually it was well written and really easy to read.

pjmlp 7y ago
That was my introduction to OOP, Turbo Pascal and later Turbo C++ manuals.
jonhendry18 7y ago
I would plop down and read the fat volumes of the NeXTSTEP General Reference.

jeroenhd 7y ago

I remember downloading the Visual Studio 2008 documentation and installing it locally on my PC. The docs were well put together and integrated neatly with the IDE. This stopped when they switched to a new offline help viewer (probably for valid reasons but still) that just didn't work well enough to replace the old one for me. That being said, most Microsoft documentation is still top notch once you use Google (or god forbid, Bing) to find the right article. I can see improvements to readability and accessibility of the site every once in a while but I kinda just want to the old docs back. They contained a beginners guide that didn't require clicking around a bunch of links to avoid the video tutorials, for example

Crinus 7y ago

> Used to be, if you bought a compiler like Visual C++, it came with a book (printed on paper) that was readable and useful and helpful. Some time ago i found a copy of Borland C++ for Windows 3.1 in its original box on eBay. The box was actually a cube and inside 99% of it was books, including references and guides for everything as well as Petzold's book for programming Windows. Sadly the cost was too much for me, but it was incredible how much documentation Borland provided (although that box was most likely an outlier, other Borland products like Delphi had more regular boxes, but still came with several books). Having said that, in Visual C++ at least since Visual C++ 6 there wasn't much printed documentation - although the dual CD MSDN docs it came with are golden.

raverbashing 7y ago
Ah yes the "good times" Too bad Visual C++ was much, much clunkier than Borland C++, it was not even fun. But true, the amount of good info found on those CDs was amazing.
- Crinus 7y ago
  Depends which versions we're talking about and if with "Borland C++" you mean the Borland C++ or the later C++ Builder. I'm going to guess the former. I have actually both BC5 (the last version that was released as "Borland C++" with the IDE going back to Win3.x times) and VC6 installed and have used older versions of VC sporadically. Visual C++ pre-VC6 was indeed clunky although i'm not sure about why as i haven't used it much, but i remember it not feeling very polished. However with VC6 Microsoft pretty much made the C++ IDE and is why even today most C++ IDEs (e.g. KDevelop, Anjuta, Code::Blocks, CodeLite, etc), many IDEs in general and even some code editors have the same basic UI layout and features. VC6 is a standard and really the only thing you may miss is tabs in the editor (but there is an addon that adds exactly that). BC5 is a nice IDE and actually, unlike VC6 (or any later version, including VS2019) is a really Iintegrated DE - the compiler is part of the IDE (you can even compile some code just by opening a text editor window and start typing code in, no need to save a file or anything, the compiler picks the source code from the editor's memory). It is also very extensible, using a C-like scripting language with dynamic typing that can access most of the IDE's features and (AFAIK, never tried it) you can write DLLs to extend the language's functionality. Personally i've only used it to modify some shortcuts from their Brief-like defaults to Windows-like defaults (e.g. Ctrl+S for save instead of -IIRC- Ctrl+K Ctrl+S...). The node-based project management also looks powerful, especially since i think you can extend it, but TBH i didn't use it much again. UI-wise it is an evolution of the original Turbo Pascal for Windows IDE they introduced with TPW 1.0 which itself was a sort of GUI evolution of their classic Turbo Vision-based IDEs introduced in TP6. TBH i do not find either of those to be too clunkier compared to the other, but i find VC6 to have some of an edge UX-wise. Previous VC versions probably will be worse though. Now if we're talking about C++ Builder, then yes, even BCB1 blows both of these out of the water.