2015-08-05 at 9:39 PM UTC
Alright so I'm in college and shit as maybe some of you know and I'm pretty good at learning all the things that require logical thinking. However, I'm not very good with computers. I mean, I can use them fine, I'm no 80 year old grandma or anything, but I don't know shit about programming or anything beyond the basics of how a computer works pretty much.
It would greatly benefit me if I could take a c++ class in the next year, but it has an advisory class of visual basic shit, and that one has a prerequisite of some other information systems class, and I can't finish those in the time I have. So my choices are either to take the info systems class this semester, then c++ next semester, OR I could just take c++ straight up this semester, which I have heard is not too bad from a friend who did it with no experience.
But I don't know much about that stuff like I said, and I don't want to get myself in over my head (especially since I have a perfect GPA right now and it would suck to ruin that just because I was impatient, so I wanted to ask you niggas, especially the technically literate niggas all up in here, yadidimean
2015-08-06 at 3:24 AM UTC
The answer to "Should I VERB-PHRASE C++?" for values of VERB-PHRASE that aren't "abhor", "avoid", or "purge usage of" (and synonyms) is "fuck no".
In all seriousness though, if it's an intro class you could prolly gimp your way though it but if you want a good grade or care about actually learning some programming you should probably do the VB class first. I admit that in my heart of hearts I have a certain affection for C++ because it's clever and speedy (in execution, if not compilation) and you feel like a real man when you're using it but I can't honestly say it's good in any material sense. Now I should say there's a strange tendency of certain college level C++ courses to teach this weird subset of C++ that's strangely similar to C but will still make C programmers laugh at you (that was the state of the one core C++ class in my CS curriculum) and that's not particularly difficult, the difficulty comes from the myriad language features and crazy ass templating (it's kinda like seeing badass characters smoke in movies, obviously bad for you but it's hard not to be a little impressed). Hard to say which you'll get though. I wouldn't gamble on it if you're not confident in your programming ability. A lot of people who pride themselves on being highly logical or whatever just don't grok programming, not so much because it's harder than anything else but fewer of your skills will carry over than you might expect (similarly to how people who are very good at mathematics in primary and secondary education sometimes "hit a wall" with formal proof, it's not objectively that difficult but it's very different than what people who thought they would be good at it are actually good at).
2015-08-07 at 9:09 AM UTC
The intro class I took in high school was all about QuickBASIC and was easy. You wont get much from just an intro course though. You'll likely learn about data types, loops, and conditionals.
2015-08-08 at 4:29 AM UTC
I got a book that teaches LibertyBASIC before going into C and such. I got pretty good with LBASIC and was able to make a couple of games and shit. It also helped me understand how to program and how programming works.
I suppose I would recomend taking the course on BASIC then getting into C++. You dont even need to remember the BASIC shit if you dont care to but taking the course will really help your understanding for a more complex language such as C based languages.
Alternatively work on some C# in your spare time and then transfer that knowledge into the C++ intro class. C# is not a hard language to learn, its a growing language and it has quite a lot of similarity to C/++.
