Quote:Original post by ncasebee
Any books that teach unmanaged C++ with Visual Studio.net? The book I got teaches managed C++ with .net (An Introduction to Programming with C++ Thrid Edition)To me .net is a lot more confusing than 6.0. I guess tutorials would work as well to.

You don't need to get a book that uses Visual Studio.net if you're just trying to learn unmanaged C++. I use Visual Studio.NET IDE, but all the code I write in C++ is unmanaged. There are options in the IDE to customize the development environment so it looks almost just like 6.0. If you go to the "My Profile" tab on the start page, I like to set the option, "Window Layout" to "Visual C++ 6"

You may wonder, why would I buy Visual Studio.NET just so I can make it work like Visual C++ 6, well the I think the Dynamic Help often comes in handy, and there are some advanced compiler options that you can set (Also, I don't only code in C++, so having all the different languages in one environment is kind of helpful). Also, I think someone mentioned that the extra windows overcrowd the space you're typing in -- you can easily close them or even go to full screen just like you can in C++ 6.0.

As far as books go, I would recommend The C++ Programming Language by Bjarne Stroustrup. Being the implementor of C++, Bjarne Stroustrup covers nearly everything you would ever need to know, and while it may not be the easiest to learn for beginners, you can always experiment with what you do know when the book gets too confusing. I think learning by Experimentation is much better than just typing examples from a book.

I second the opinion that you do not really want to learn "Visual C++ .NET without .NET" from a book on that ...

you want to learn "Standard C++" from any good recent book on C++, such as the previously mentioned Stroustroup book ... or just about ANY of the great books on C++ and aspects of it from the Addison Wesley publishers ("The C++ Programming Langauge", "The C++ Standard Library" are both in my library and have been heavily used these past 5 years ...)

you want to learn how to use the Visual C++ .NET IDE and Compiler from a book on that, or by asking forums questions ... but primarily you will be doing VERY LITTLE Visual C++ stuff ... mainly making solutions and projects, getting them started, setting compiler and linker options, linking to libraries (like GLUT or the SDK), installing various SDKs, etc ... are the types of things you Visual C++ specific ways ... and for each task you need to acomplish - first googling for it, such as "Install DirectX SDK Visual Studio .NET" ..., then asking on this forum when you aren't sure you found the right thing(s), or want more explanation ... that should do it.

Now if/when you want to do Windows programming (like writting a windows program with a menu, or that opens standard file dialog boxes and such), THEN you will want a book on Visual C++ .NET specificially. AND you will want to learn .NET for this, NOT the old MFC or ATL/WTL way that people used to use with Visual C++ 6.0. The .NET library is just WAY WAY better for programming windows progams than any previous Microsoft library.

So remember:

C++ programming - is a topic all to itself, and something you probably want to focus on.

Using Visual C++ to do C++ Programming - is a seperate topic, that doesn't affect the first much ...

Windows Programming (using C++ in this case) - is yet a third topic, that is vastly different than standard C++ programming, and involves learning the Visual C++ Visual Designer Tools, Forms, Events, etc ... (and is often not needed for doing games, if you are using SDL, GLUT, or some other "game" sdk).

C++ progamming is to Visual C++ Programming as 3D Graphics programming is to OpenGL OR Direct3D programming (ie, the latter options depends on the former, but adds it's own pieces).