well since I suck at game programming I would like to some text based c++ programming. I have built a very simple calculator application using classes and objects. since I am brushing up on my c++ programming skills, what is a good web site(s) where I can get better at my c++ skills. if you have any ideas where do I go further I would appreciate that as well.

well I am working on a c++ tutorial, I have a very simple question.in the following code I am doing the following.

1) I am putting a j value in temp variable

2) I am adding one to the j value

3) I want to put the temp value in the j value plus one.

this is a very simple swap routine.

here is my code

temp_one = j;

j=j+1;

[j+1]=temp_one;

I am getting an error in the "[j+1]" part of my code.

I just need a second set of eyes to solve this problem.

				temp_one = j;
				j = j + 1;
				j = temp_one;

ok here is my code

all I want to do is swap three values, this includes a temp variable, like bubble sort.

The problem is that what you think it should do, is not what you actually told the computer to do. To get forward to wards solving your problem, you have to understand that "what it should do" and "what you told it to do" are two different things.

Your aim is to align these two concepts, that is "what you told it to do" results exactly in "what it should do". Obviously, you haven't reached that point here.

To get forward, you have to let go of the former, and only consider "what you told it to do". The simplest approach to that is to play "dumb computer" for a while. Nothing else but the actual code exists in the world. Your programmer told you to compute it, and you always do what your programmer says! No idea what it means or does, but my programmer does!

Take a piece of paper and a pen, and write down the value of all variables. "execute" one statement at a time by manual computation. Write down the statement that you're going to 'execute' below the variable values. Compute the value to assign, and "assign" it by writing the value of all variables again, where the assigned variable gets changed.

Yep it's slow and dumb, but it works.

In time, you'll get better at it, and eventually you can do this without ever writing anything down. This is what experienced programmers do in their head when "reading code". They look at the computations, and deduce how variables change.

Once you did the above, you now have A) your steps as you think they should work, and B) the actual code steps that the computer performed.

Now it is time to map A to B. If all is well, some of the first statements of B belong to the first step of A, then, some of the statements that follow belong to the 2nd step of A, and so on. Decide for each statement that you "executed" while playing "dumb computer" what step it belongs to. Then, take the start and end of each A step, and compare the values of the variables at the start with the values of the variables at the end. Are they correct for implementing that A step? If so, continue. If not, then obviously something is wrong in the code, as you apparently told the computer something else than what you intended. In that case, look at each statement from B carefully, where did it make a wrong computation? Once you found that, you can fix it, and play the whole game again, hopefully with a better aligned "what I think it should do" and "what I told it".

For some practice, and insight in your current problem try

int a = 1;
int b = 2;
a = b;
b = 3;
b = a;

and one step further:

int a = 1;
int b = 2;
a = b;
b = b + 1;
b = a;

which looks a lot like

int temp_one = 1;
int j = 2;
temp_one = j;
j = j + 1;
j = temp_one;

Does it implement your steps?