I just installed Visual Studio .NET Pro 2002 last night and started using the SAMS teach yourself C++ in 21 days (this book is old with a copyright of 1997). I did the Hello World program and it didn't work. I remember doing it before in Visual C++ 6 and it worked, but now in .NET it doesn't. My first question is: is .NET a lot different or am I just starting in the wrong area. My second question is: should I get a more updated book like "C++ How to Program" by Deitel & Deitel or maybe "Beginning C++ Game Programming (Game Development Series)" by Michael Dawson? I am planning on spending September teaching myself as much as possible and then in October I am taking a C++ class at School. Thanks for your help.

accelerated c++ koenig and moo

The only difference in that book is that it uses the old style headers so you want something like this now...



Personally I liked 21 days as a starting point but it is outdated, so you probably want to pick up accelerated c++

Quote:Original post by Onemind
Don't get Deitel & Deitel - Teach yourself C++ is the better book. You may want to consider going back to VC 6, or using a free compiler such as Bloodshed (GCC compiler) until you understand C++.

Everyone's entitled to their own opinion, but Deitel & Deitel's: C(++/#) How To Program are the best books I have ever used on the subjects. They are designed to be college textbooks so present the material to you in a way that you are meant to understand and then extend yourself rather than teaching you like you're a small child. I would highly recommend them to anyone trying to learn the language for use in an academic or professional environment.

As to the .NET compiler thing you probably want to make sure that (1) you're not using the deprecated headers (use iostream instead of iostream.h) and (2) you're not creating a Managed C++ program because those are abominations. Again I'm going to disagree with Onemind because the VC++.NET compiler is worlds better than anything the VC6 compiler or GCC compiler could hope to be.

Keep using VS.NET, but I recommend getting a more modern book that teaches C++ that has been updated recently to include the changes to the language that were made in 99/00ish.

Make sure you're creating the correct sort of projects for your code, most of the examples in that book are likely to be Console projects, so make sure you're not trying to create managed or Win32 applications.

I also posted some links to other tutorials in your Journal earlier today if you need them.

I agree, the .NET compiler is much better than GCC and VC6 - and as for learning how to compile via the command line, it's kind of pointless seeing that you just shelled out $100 on an IDE [rolleyes].

If you can't still get it to work, post your compiler errors here and I'm sure that someone on this forum will be able to help you out and explain it.