a few quick quick questions before I even start..

[Clodi]

hello chili people.
..as you know.. I am the "question" man.

so.. question time!!

1) why did Chili bother with "putchar", "getchar" when normal people use "cin" "cout" for everything nowadays? Was it to explain and teach pointers and practice some progr. in the mean time, or was for another reason? this one is silly but very important to me now as I am starting an app. in console. Is "cin" "cout" stuff that you guys would use or.. ?

2) on C++.com one guy said:

Zereo (354) Jan 26, 2013 at 9:24pm
Also if your looking to have it in a full GUI I can also recommend using QT4 to do it. QT Creator has a drag and drop design tool that you can use when you are just starting out with GUI's and you can also program in C++ for the stuff that needs more detail then the drag and drop can provide.

and I replied:

thank you very much mate.
Actually, I have been working on "ChiliTomatoNoodle" tutorials on YouTube (you should check them out, they are amazing) and therefore I am working with a framework and I am "used" to make things from scratch

(.."from scratch.." ahah ..anyway..) would you guys advise me to use these programs (for when I want to train with the console and for things where graphics does not matter) ?

3) I bought an amazing book (with an amazing price ) that is meant to be a guide to C++ written by the implementer of C++.

http://www.stroustrup.com/Programming/

I am not even half way through it but a few things surprise me:
(a) vectors are explained before arrays and "arrays" themselves are barely touched upon throughout the whole book.. wtfbro?
(b) STRINGS are presented as a TYPE from the start, like an INT. He doesn't go through CHARs to build arrays and call them strings.. wtfbro?
(c) WHERE ARE POINTERS?? no seriously.. apparently he's been extremely racist to them for some reason unless there are other ways of programming that he sticks to,, and they are very different from the way Chili taught me. In that case I prefer to sell the book and buy a new one rather than making my life more painful and confusing only because I already wasted the money

that's all for today,
have a nice week
and thank you so much for any help/comment/thought/answer from you

[nG Inverse]

1. I'm not sure where you are referring to him using these functions, however, it was probably to demonstrate a particular point.

2. Yes! It is always good to experiment with different things on your own. I would suggest getting used to using WinAPI however along with multiple other methods. This will enable you to have the experience and specific-detail if it ever becomes required (for example, different companies use different libraries/APIs)

3. I actually have bought and read halfway through 'The C++ Programming Language Special Edition' by him as well. It's a very nice refresher and reference after watching many of Chili's videos. Although I wouldn't suggest picking it up simply to learn straight off the back; there are much more simpler books for doing so.

3a. That is because arrays are low-level and used more predominately in C code rather than C++. When writing code in C++, it is very recommended (as I'm sure you read in the book) to use the standard library, which is where vectors are located. The reason we learned arrays first in Chili's tutorials (and I guess still are, since I don't remember doing a tutorial with vectors, or any of the containers) is that we first learned C before C++, just to get our feet wet with programming. Although, I don't find that a necessary approach as C and C++ are two very different languages, especially when it comes to implementation. Regardless, I still learned A LOT from Chili's tutorials and am very glad to of found them, so am happy however he likes to teach.

3b. Again, he's teaching you to use the STL right from the get-go. We learned arrays because we were first learning C.

3c. He most definitely will go over them (I'm surprised he hasn't already!), just keep reading. You also have to realize that everyone has their own style of coding and teaching. Chili's is very unique, which is why a lot of people find it easier to understand. However, it doesn't necessarily always lead to the best practice (*cough* #pragma once *cough*). Again though, both resources (Chili and the book) will really help you out if you stick to them.

[Clodi]

thank you so much mate.. all useful information