I was considering buying the book for the workshop and following it (I know it's done, but I believe I can still follow it). Anyways, I was wanting to talk to people who participated in it and wanted to know if it was a significant help. If it was, I'll follow it. If not, I'll look around for other books and tutorials to read instead. Thank you!

Kegan,

I'm the author of the C++ and the C# Workshop, so while I wasn't a student, I can at least offer some advice.

The primary benefit of the Annual Language Workshops is that you have other people working along side you, facing the same problems as you, and discovering the same material as you. Likewise, you've also got a small group of people who dedicate themselves for 6-12 weeks to helping others learn the language. As a result, its almost like you've got a dedicated tutor standing by to help you. Without the Workshop "active" you lose much of what makes the Workshops unique.

With that said, the textbook we used for the C++ workshop proved an adequate teaching source for most people, and while you may read over the discussions posted in the C++ workshop and post responses, they're likely to go unanswered for quite some time, as few people check them frequently anymore.

So I'd advise you to obtain whichever textbook you feel you can learn best from (dont get me wrong, it's a fine textbook), and then just post your questions in the For Beginners forum. This gives you the benefit of a tried and true textbook, and also the aid of thousands of other programmers. There are also tons of C++ support forums out there specifically for learning to program in C++.

Good luck!

Thank you, fellow Walsh ;)