3 ms·

This isn’t the first time I read that C++ is great as a foundational language. I think there was a StackOverflow blog post about it just recently also. Any sel

This isn’t the first time I read that C++ is great as a foundational language. I think there was a StackOverflow blog post about it just recently also. Any self-taught C++ dev here that can talk about their journey? How did you learn (books or courses), and how much did it help you later on when learning new languages?

cqqxo4zV46cp 2y ago
Make take this as an indication that it’s not a great fundemental language.
glonq 2y ago
They taught us a couple weeks worth of C++ in college, but this was way back in the early 1990's. So I started my career as a C developer, gradually learning how/why to use C++ as better tools and libraries evolved. Various DOS-era libraries for UI, database, and communication encouraged me to use C++ more. And then learning Windows programming (MFC) also very much got me into C++. I eventually jumped to C#, which was probably made much easier by being comfy with C++ first.
andersa 2y ago
I started about 10 years ago with modding games. C++ is what everyone used (and mostly still uses) to write mods/cheats, dll injections, and so on. There were some shared online that I used as reference to learn how it was done. Looking up everything I didn't understand, reading hundreds of forum posts, blogs and stackoverflow. Modifying it to do silly things. It's a really steep difficulty curve to start like this, but it'll immediately force you to understand all the low level fundamentals if you want to accomplish anything. You can't make a functioning mod if you don't understand the memory model of the game and engine you're messing with, or what your code is actually doing. So you build a really strong foundation by force, and everything after comes naturally. Now I work at a AAA game studio and it's really fun to be able to easily make large changes to the engine as needed. Sometimes you have to write complicated generic code, and sometimes you get to write really fast and simple code. You always understand what happens behind the scenes, how the computer will represent your data and how it processes it. How different threads interact when accessing shared data. There's not really anything that can't be figured out. Somehow I never cared for any courses or books. They all want you to make boring things, and that's the best way to get disinterested and give up. Wanting to get a particular thing to work can be incredible motivation to keep digging at it for weeks and learn large amounts of trivia along the way. I think my suggestion would be don't try to learn C++. Find something you actually want to do (maybe you want to make a game?) and use C++ to do that. At least that's what worked for me. Also, this meme is very much true. Try to stay clear of "modern c++" template over engineering. There's a reason why no game studio uses the STL. https://twitter.com/nice_byte/status/1466940940229046273 https://twitter.com/nice_byte/status/1466940940229046273

cqqxo4zV46cp 2y ago

Make take this as an indication that it’s not a great fundemental language.

glonq 2y ago

They taught us a couple weeks worth of C++ in college, but this was way back in the early 1990's. So I started my career as a C developer, gradually learning how/why to use C++ as better tools and libraries evolved. Various DOS-era libraries for UI, database, and communication encouraged me to use C++ more. And then learning Windows programming (MFC) also very much got me into C++. I eventually jumped to C#, which was probably made much easier by being comfy with C++ first.

andersa 2y ago

I started about 10 years ago with modding games. C++ is what everyone used (and mostly still uses) to write mods/cheats, dll injections, and so on. There were some shared online that I used as reference to learn how it was done. Looking up everything I didn't understand, reading hundreds of forum posts, blogs and stackoverflow. Modifying it to do silly things. It's a really steep difficulty curve to start like this, but it'll immediately force you to understand all the low level fundamentals if you want to accomplish anything. You can't make a functioning mod if you don't understand the memory model of the game and engine you're messing with, or what your code is actually doing. So you build a really strong foundation by force, and everything after comes naturally. Now I work at a AAA game studio and it's really fun to be able to easily make large changes to the engine as needed. Sometimes you have to write complicated generic code, and sometimes you get to write really fast and simple code. You always understand what happens behind the scenes, how the computer will represent your data and how it processes it. How different threads interact when accessing shared data. There's not really anything that can't be figured out. Somehow I never cared for any courses or books. They all want you to make boring things, and that's the best way to get disinterested and give up. Wanting to get a particular thing to work can be incredible motivation to keep digging at it for weeks and learn large amounts of trivia along the way. I think my suggestion would be don't try to learn C++. Find something you actually want to do (maybe you want to make a game?) and use C++ to do that. At least that's what worked for me. Also, this meme is very much true. Try to stay clear of "modern c++" template over engineering. There's a reason why no game studio uses the STL. https://twitter.com/nice_byte/status/1466940940229046273 https://twitter.com/nice_byte/status/1466940940229046273