Need to advice or comment. I got some problem about to overcame study/practice on 'the Very Thick of C/C+ Programming Book'. I selected many book which someone that recommend the good book (which quite many thick book, 400-500 pages) and start to read & coding... Very bad for me... I am not ever read all the contents of the book and I have abandon every times when I reaching chapter 3 or 4.. and the put it down... for a three or four day... and then start the Chapter 1 again.. I don't know why I can not completly read all contents since 1st pages until last pages in the once? Do you have any idea, how I can overcome the Programming book ? Anybody got this bad habit evidence? Thank you for every post

The key to learning a programming language by a book is to not just read the book, but immediately use the knowledge you have gained. Just reading these kind of dry textbooks will certainly make a lot of people loose their attention. You have to treat the book as a guide and do a lot of programming yourself.

From the moment you learn about how to output text to a console, variable declarations and control structures ( if, else etc. ) you can start playing with what you learned. This is mostly during chapter 1 or 2 already. You can make a calculator for example, or perhaps you want to make a little guessing game. It doesn't matter, the point is that you need to make programming fun for yourself.

So here's my advice, don't just try to read the book, but try to program a lot while using the book as your guide ;)

Thank you 'rogierpennink',
So, that is we need to implement whole concept (of each chapter) to be some own project (or small project) when finish of reading each chapter right?

Well, you don't need to make a whole official project out of it, but by the time I reached chapters about pointers etcetera, I felt this urge to make something bigger from myself. In the chapters before I just kept making small programs like "Guess the number" and "lingo" (some dutch game...).

I think the best situation is when you read something, then think: "Hey, that sounds cool", start up your computer, and actually use it in a program. That way you immediately use what you learned, so you'll remember it better. You also take a break from the endless pages of theory. You bring some 'variation' in your learning process ;)

So thanks a lot,
For the small project, what is the trick of creating the project?
Can we borrow some idea from Code Example in the chapters for implementing to own project (like alter the code...) ?

For my point .. how I can create the new idea or where I can get the cool idea for my project?

Well, in the start you won't need much "inspiration" for your programs as you won't have the tools to make anything complicated yet. Just test some of the code examples in the book, change them a bit, see what you can do. Learning to program is also 'exploration' where you try to find the boundaries of what is possible (with your knowledge).

Forgive me for not being able to be more specific, but this changes from person to person. Some people like to start by making small games, whereas others find it very cool to make a simple "records database" using some new-found File I/O knowledge. It's all up to what you think is fun to do - I'm sure you'll think of something.

After all, programming is also a very creative process ;)

Clear!!

Thank you for your suggestion 'rogierpennink'.
;)


..Any comment are welcome.

When I was learning something totally new I always tried to use it in 2 steps.

Step 1 - Imagine a few examples of the simplest thing I can think of which could use the thing I'm just leanring.

So if I'm learning variables and simple operators, then I imagine writing the code to declare 2 variables and add them together. Then a version with 3 variables, that adds 2 and multiples the sum by the third. If I'm learning about file IO, I write a program that writes 2 variables to a file, then a program that reads the 2 variables from the file and shows them on the screen. And I usually write 1, 2 or 3 of these little examples until I feel I have a basic understanding of the new concept. So when learning if and else logic in C++, I wrote a program like this:




Step 2 - Combine what I just learned with some of the things I already know.

As you can see from the program above, all programs have to combine a few features (such as I/O), but many of the other techniques you learn you won't have to use in every program unless you want to. For instance you may not need File I/O, math, classes, switch statement, etc. very often at the beginning. But once you learn a topic, it helps to use it again a short while later, while focusing on other things. It helps you keep the knowledge in your head, and it helps build a clearer picture of the whole.

Quote:Original post by LessBread
We have an expression here in the US that goes like this. "How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time." In other words, although the task is large it can be accomplished by diligently proceeding in small steps and sticking to the plan.

A 400 page book on C++ isn't meant to be read in a week. If that was the book for a course in programming, it's easy to imagine spending 9 months learning from it. And if the book is good, you'll be referring back to it for years to come whenever you need to refresh your understanding of some rarely used feature.

Funny, I always thought that was a proverb, of african origin if google is to be trusted :) Not that it matters, just feels really weird to label an ancient idea as "american" ... since our oldest such sayings are all of the Poor Richard's Almanac era (good old Ben Franklin). Even more so since we don't have elephants :)

We may however have been the first people to say "I'm so hungry, I could eat a horse." (don't ask me the connection)