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Original post by chollida1: Perhaps I had a misunderstanding then.:) I thought the issue was that the teachers were going to prepare tutorials that the students would follow along with, ie how to setup a hello world project. I didn't know there would be quizes and homework:) I was picturing a more nehe approach to this, ie build up a knowledge base by doing progressively more challenging tasks. Cheers Chris

Uhh, it sounds like you might still be misunderstanding a bit. You can re-read the first post in this thread (written by me) if you like, which outlines the idea as it has evolved.

No one's writing any tutorials since we're using a textbook instead. Which one is still up in the air, but we will be using a common textbook. This frees up time for the tutors to be spent helping the 'students' understand the information, rather then spending all of our time writing the information down. Why write more C++ tutorials when there's dozens of acceptable books already available? [lol]

Additionally, there wont be quizzes or homework, but participants are encouraged to complete the quizzes, questions, and exercises that are in the textbook. As well, the tutors might post some additional questions of our own to make sure people DO understand the text. Anything that people don’t understand can be discussed in the chapter thread. Though, it's unlikely that solutions to every exercise will be posted to the forums. What is more likely is questions will be answered that help the students complete the exercises on their own.

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Original post by Photonman: Maybe, as suggested by programwizard, this could be covered in an introductory thread. I'd be willing to write a "getting started" instructions for Dev and VC++

While textbooks are generally pretty good at helping people with "getting started," I have no objections to people writing posts on installing and configuring different IDE's, as well as creating projects and solutions. If such posts are made, I'd be happy to link them in the introductory posts. It seems the 3 most common are VC, Dev-C++, and Code::Blocks.

Cheers!
Jeromy

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Original post by chollida1 Quote: Original post by Silicon Spark Quote: Original post by superpig Quote: Original post by programwizard there will be some students using Linux/other non-Windows systems. I thought the whole appeal of Linux was figuring everything out yourself? [grin] lol, partly, linux users might just want an os that doesnt crash ever 1/2 hour. lol My XP dev. machine is going for 12 days now without a crash. YOu should try XP you may just like it:) There are quite a few experienced devs who now consider XP to be atleast as stable if not more so than many linux desktop distro's. Cheers Chris

Windows XP is plenty stable, but it's not free(and I'm not talking primarily about the cost here, though it is there). There is free software for windows, and there are free libraries for it but not quite as much.

I think it's a lot easier to start learning to program in linux than to start in windows and then learn how to port. With linux there is already the assumption that many libraries need to have windows versions (like SDL or OpenAL) yet this is not the case with DirectX.

Fundamentally the philosophy behind linux is just more friendly to those who are starting out with development (and are willing to share in the same way others have shared with them). Linux naturally gets more free software/libraries because it is based on that philosophy.

Anyway, linux appeals to people for very different reasons. For myself it mainly had to do with the above. I like free software and believe that this is something that should be promoted. I do not like software to be unfriendly solely so that I can waste time figuring it out. Thankfully for the most part Linux is beyond that point for me. There are still times that I have that frustration but really it's a lot better than it was a few years ago.

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Original post by dbzprogrammer Personally, I'd just go with Dev C++, but since we have people willing to explain both, I'd go that direction.

Last time I used Dev-C++ it had some serious bugs, such as crapping out if the source file path contained a space. Which is why I eventually switched to Code::Blocks and never looked back.

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Though, it's unlikely that solutions to every exercise will be posted to the forums.

Yes, this is precisely what I want to avoid. I don't want this to turn into a database of "all the answers to the exercises in textbook XYZ".

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Which is why I eventually switched to Code::Blocks and never looked back.

That's neat. I think I'll check it out, currently using kdevelop which works fine for me so far.

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Original post by Fruny: Yes, this is precisely what I want to avoid. I don't want this to turn into a database of "all the answers to the exercises in textbook XYZ".

Aye. I don’t want that either. I'm far more interested in making sure people know how to solve the problems, do the exercises, and answer the questions for themselves.

But, I'm not adverse to making sure people know they got the answer right or wrong. And in the process of discussing some of the exercises, the correct answers will invariably be explored. I don’t want to foster a community where no one will ask or answer questions because they're afraid of giving away the 'secret' and thus being reprimanded.

If someone doesn’t understand a question, problem, exercise, etc...it should be fine to ask questions. Answers will be given that helps the person understand their questions. No more, and no less. There will not, however, be a running thread of the answers to every chapter exercise. [lol]

Cheers!
Jeromy

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Original post by jwalsh No one's writing any tutorials since we're using a textbook instead. Which one is still up in the air, but we will be using a common textbook. This frees up time for the tutors to be spent helping the 'students' understand the information, rather then spending all of our time writing the information down. Why write more C++ tutorials when there's dozens of acceptable books already available? [lol]

yes it did seem like I was confused:)

Sounds like fun, I'm fine with that:)

Cheers
Chris

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Original post by Xanas Fundamentally the philosophy behind linux is just more friendly to those who are starting out with development (and are willing to share in the same way others have shared with them). Linux naturally gets more free software/libraries because it is based on that philosophy.

Actually, I'd say that the abundance of libraries and software is the biggest reason why it isn't friendly to newbies. You're literally spoilt for choice; do you build your GUI using Gnome, KDE, Qt, GTK, or something else? Which IDE do you use? Which distros should you develop and test under? FMOD, BASS, OSS or ALSA? Etc...

It's fine for someone who has enough experience and working knowledge to be able to make those decisions, but for newbies, choice is largely a bad thing. You must have seen the 'Direct3D vs OpenGL' threads in here before...

Anyway, we're getting a bit off-topic.

thank u guys for helping

if i am oniing u this have to tell me

my opinion just from looks vb look nice and i have the cd
i got it from my mom who used to porgram





ps. srry for spelling

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Original post by londonman thank u guys for helping if i am oniing u this have to tell me my opinion just from looks vb look nice and i have the cd i got it from my mom who used to porgram ps. srry for spelling

Rather then apologizing, just run your posts through a grammar and spelling check utility. Copy and paste your post into MS Word, for example, before hitting submit.

Even though, I might be a little to advanced from where this starts out, I am still game for this. I actually wouldn't mind going back to the beginning of C++, and re-learning the basics of it. Mostly because, I am sure I will find different ways of doing stuff I just totally forgot about. hehe.

Chad.