Re: Another Newbie Question: C or C++

• Previous message: Harald Schmalzbauer: "Re: Is the swap partition really required for a live FS CD-ROM?"
• In reply to: Alex Kelly: "Another Newbie Question: C or C++"
• Next in thread: Louis LeBlanc: "Re: Another Newbie Question: C or C++"
• Reply: Louis LeBlanc: "Re: Another Newbie Question: C or C++"
• Reply: C. Ulrich: "Re: Another Newbie Question: C or C++"
• Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ]

Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 19:12:12 -0500
To: Alex Kelly <alexkelly@adelphia.net>

Alex Kelly wrote:

>I need to buy a book on C or C++ to help me in FreeBSD. Which would be better to buy?
>
>I first thought a book on C would be best, because the OS is written in C. But, now I'm not sure because I read that gcc can compile C++ too (so, I'm assuming C++ must get used too).
>
>Does it even matter?
>
>Suggestions?
>_______________________________________________
>freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list
>http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions
>To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscribe@freebsd.org"
>
>
>
It depends on your goals. I used to teach both C and C++, and now years
later, am currently hard pressed to find a non-Microsoft C/C++
development position. If for personal knowledge, definitely C followed
by C++. If professional, or want to be....hmm. In that case, I'd say
it still depends more on your goals- if you're going to try to stay in
*nix development, you've GOT to know C. If you don't care, or God help
you, want a job doing Windows development, start with C++, and ignore
all of the standard data types because MS will make their own for you ;-)

Starting with C has an advantage in that you tend to have to do 'most of
the work yourself' for a lot of things, which tends to help you
understand more about how things work. IMHO, that also tends to make
better programmers down the line, regardless of the language they use.
C++ is similar, but STL will make life easier when it comes to data
structures. Java I don't want to talk about ;-)

A significant amount of system level programming(think system processes
and services/daemons) are written in C. A fair number of applications
are, but the majority of GNOME/KDE apps, if that's a consideration, are
done in C++. A growing number of applications are also being done in
Java, but it's not the best language to start with for understanding
much of anything (you can write a half dozen lines of Java to replace
perhaps 100+ in C/C++ from scratch in some cases). It isn't a bad
language to learn (professional-wise as well, *groan*) after learning C
or C++.

Books and references-
C- Already mentioned, K&R 'The C Programming Language' is 'the bible.'
This is also generally a lousy book to start with if you aren't
programming already, but an invaluable reference. Pick up another book,
wish I knew a good starter one, but it's been a while...can try Deitel
and Deitel or (nobody laugh, have used it for Intro before..) the 21
days SAMs series for a 'jump-start,' and THEN the Deitel/Deitel and K&R.

W. Richard Stevens "Advanced Programming in the UNIX Environment"- MUST
HAVE. I may be misquoting the name, but a search on bookpool.com ,
bn.com (or search on amazon then BUY somewhere else!) will quickly turn
it up. K&R is to the C language, Stevens is to Unix programming...

google search for 'Secure Unix Programming'- there's a FAQ or two out
there that are pretty good once you're past 'the basics.'

C++
Latest edition of Deitel/Deitel. Funny, I used to really dislike their
books, but they DO provide pretty decent overall coverage. May or may
not be 'too deep' at first, if so, preface with SAMs or equivalent.

Stroustrup- 'The C++ Programming Language". Stroustrup write C++ but is
pretty dry. Good reference and for advanced topics.
Stroustrup- Annoted Reference Manual AKA 'the ARM'- what K&R is to C.
*The C++ Standard Library : A Tutorial and Reference- recommended pretty
highly, but don't currently have. search on favorite bookstore will
turn it up.

*Java (before ya ask ;-) There are a LOT of bad books on Java it
seems. Deitel and Deitel again is worth buying as a first book (after C
and/or C++), then decide what you want to DO with Java, as there are a
number of directions- JDBC, Beans, JSP, etc etc etc..

As always, languages and books can be a moving target- when possible,
pick up the latest edition covering the current ANSI standard for C/C++,
and make sure anything you buy for Java covers 'Java 2,' preferably JDK
1.4, but at least 1.3 or you'll be throwing out work by the time you
work on a current project..

Misc others-
POSIX Programming, O'Reilly press. Good coverage of POSIX (Unix for
simplicity's sake but not really) required system calls.

Network Programming- Again,m by Stevens.

FAQs for whatever you wind up taking an interest in. I don't _like_ GUI
development, but KDE and GNOME have a fair number of tutorials for QT
and GTK respectively...

Scott

_______________________________________________
freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list
http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions
To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscribe@freebsd.org"

• Previous message: Harald Schmalzbauer: "Re: Is the swap partition really required for a live FS CD-ROM?"
• In reply to: Alex Kelly: "Another Newbie Question: C or C++"
• Next in thread: Louis LeBlanc: "Re: Another Newbie Question: C or C++"
• Reply: Louis LeBlanc: "Re: Another Newbie Question: C or C++"
• Reply: C. Ulrich: "Re: Another Newbie Question: C or C++"
• Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ]