So, I couldn’t think of a witty title. My Christmas break is dwelling heavily on my mind. :) I’m looking forward to the break more than I realized. Well, I finally decided that I was going to quit kidding around and learn (or try to) a programming language. Back in my undergraduate years, I took 2 computer science classes (C++ and Java). I excelled at them, but at the time, I was preoccupied with graduating in time & I decided to drop that line of study for my eventual major, Biology. Well, I’ve always been interested in programming and I finally got a copy of Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Professional through the Microsoft Dreamspark program. I’ve also being doing a lot of ‘research’ online about key tools (books) to have in one’s arsenal. Obviously, I've gone without actual program for over 5 yrs. :) I'm definitely a beginner in this field so I'm looking for b00ks geared towards beginners, but filled with sound programming principles & advice. Without further ado, here is a short list of books that are highly regarded for either beginners to programming or furthering one’s previous knowledge of programming.
| Title | Author(s) | ISBN Number | Last Released |
| Accelerated C++ | Andrew Koenig and Barbara Moo | 020170353X (ISBN-10) 978-0201703535 (ISBN-13) | August 2000 |
| You Can Program in C++ | Francis Glassborow | 0470014687 (ISBN-10) 978-0470014684 (ISBN-13) | July 2006 |
| The C++ Programming Language | Bjarne Stroustrup | 0-201-88954-4 (ISBN-10) 978-0201700732 (ISBN 13) | February 2000 |
| Effective C++ | Scott Meyer | 0321334876 (ISBN-10) 978-0321334879 (ISBN-13) | May 2005 |
| Modern C++ Design | Andrei Alexandrescu | 0201704315 (ISBN-10) 978-0201704310 (ISBN-13) | February 2001 |
| C++ Without Fear | Brian Overland | 0321246950 (ISBN-10) 978-0321246950 (ISBN-13) | September 2004 |
| C++ Primer Plus | Stephen Prata | 0672326973 (ISBN-10) 978-0672326974 (ISBN-13) | November 2004 |
I will make an effort to check out the local libraries to use their copies. If not, I'll have to pony up the high price tag unless some loving soul on the intarwebs feels like lending me their copy. :)
Update (October 2009):
I purchased Ivor Horton's "Beginning Visual C++ 2008" because it was geared specifically towards learning C++ through Visual Studio 2008. That way, there'll be no issues of the book showing one picture and the program I'm using displaying another picture. Thanks to the little knowledge I've picked up from that book, I was able to help my husband, Matt, out with his Introduction to Visual Basic class. :P
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Ajay Jain of http://onlinecompiler.org
OnlineCompiler.org
Now You can create, run, upload, and download your C, C++ Programs/ Projects Online.
OnlineCompiler.org is a completed online development environment for C/C++ in Linuc/Unix Style and built over Php.
You can access onlineCompiler.org here. This is a joint project by CodeControl and Ajay Jain. OnlineCompiler.org has a lot of features that will make online development quite comfortable and fun. You can save your prohects over there, take a backup and retrieve it later, or may be download it. It is specially useful in cases when you need to do something and they don't have a compiler.
Currently onlinecompiler.org supports only Unix/Linux GCC based C/C++. We are planning to introduce Python support very soon. But no official dates. :-)
Posted at December 18, 2008 on 11:22pm