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Programming |OT| C is better than C++! No, C++ is better than C
- Thread starter Kikarian
- Start date
tonysidaway
Member
That will work on nearly every machine you ever use, but it wouldn't work on a system that represents the signed integer -1 as anything other than all 1s. The representation of signed numbers isn't defined in C.
cpp_is_king
Member
It's confusing, but signed to unsigned conversion is independent of the representation of the signed number. So the above expression is defined behavior, and will always be correct.
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/809227/is-it-safe-to-use-1-to-set-all-bits-to-true
The signed number format is irrelevant because the standard specifies that when you cast a negative number to unsigned the conversion is performed by adding (MAX + 1) to the negative number. So if the number is -1, it must be converted to MAX according to the standard.
So posted this in the web design thread but didn't get any responses so I'll try here.
I've tried teaching myself coding before and quit after hitting a road block early in the process. But after reading through and asking around on GAF, I came upon Team treehouse and I literally just finished their first course on web design and built my own website. Anyway was wondering if you guys had any advice on what do next as far as getting experience and building up a portfolio.
I really enjoyed the treehouse course and for once some stuff started to click. I'm thinking now I'll finish up the web design track then move onto the front end web dev track. Though apparently it's a good idea to take the framework basics course in between those 2 tracks.
I'm not in school so I'm basically teaching myself everything and I have no degree. Only did some CC but realized I had no interest in any of the degrees nor did I want waste anymore time and $$ until I could figure out exactly what I wanted to do.
I decided upon coding because besides the obvious $$ aspect I've always been fascinated by it and even when I failed to teach myself I actually enjoyed learning it. I also enjoyed every minute of typing up code and seeing it come to life in the form of a website from the web design treehouse course.
Since I'll be pursuing this without a degree or formal education I'm going to need a good portfolio to prove I have experience and that I know what I'm doing. So far the only things I can think once I get a better handle on things, is to build my build my friend's theme park news site. Besides helping him out, he wanted me to contribute to it anyway and I figure it will be good experience and something to add to my portfolio once I get the ball rolling.
I should also mention I live in the bay area so I'm in the perfect spot to learn but if anyone knows any good communities or places to learn from here I'm all ears. My goal is eventually become self-employed but if/when I get good enough my friend told me he could get me a job at his company.
I've tried teaching myself coding before and quit after hitting a road block early in the process. But after reading through and asking around on GAF, I came upon Team treehouse and I literally just finished their first course on web design and built my own website. Anyway was wondering if you guys had any advice on what do next as far as getting experience and building up a portfolio.
I really enjoyed the treehouse course and for once some stuff started to click. I'm thinking now I'll finish up the web design track then move onto the front end web dev track. Though apparently it's a good idea to take the framework basics course in between those 2 tracks.
I'm not in school so I'm basically teaching myself everything and I have no degree. Only did some CC but realized I had no interest in any of the degrees nor did I want waste anymore time and $$ until I could figure out exactly what I wanted to do.
I decided upon coding because besides the obvious $$ aspect I've always been fascinated by it and even when I failed to teach myself I actually enjoyed learning it. I also enjoyed every minute of typing up code and seeing it come to life in the form of a website from the web design treehouse course.
Since I'll be pursuing this without a degree or formal education I'm going to need a good portfolio to prove I have experience and that I know what I'm doing. So far the only things I can think once I get a better handle on things, is to build my build my friend's theme park news site. Besides helping him out, he wanted me to contribute to it anyway and I figure it will be good experience and something to add to my portfolio once I get the ball rolling.
I should also mention I live in the bay area so I'm in the perfect spot to learn but if anyone knows any good communities or places to learn from here I'm all ears. My goal is eventually become self-employed but if/when I get good enough my friend told me he could get me a job at his company.
i use http://docs.gl/ for my opengl coding, it's a pretty great resource and you can download it for offline use http://docs.gl/about.html.
There's a web design thread
------
Advice wise, there's only two things.
Keep learning. Every. Single. Day. It doesn't matter what it is, as long as it's something you didn't know yesterday.
Build things. Aim for a website a week. Even if it's just some dorky site that plays Hiyayayayayayaya on repeat for 24 hours a day. You'll be solving problems and getting experience building things.
Once you start to feel more comfortable with Javascript and HTML/CSS start to look into the various tools and frameworks that exist for those languages, (there are thousands). The big ones being:
- jQuery
- Bootstrap / Foundation
- SASS/LESS
- AngularJS / ReactJS / EmberJS
- NodeJS
There's a web design thread
------
Advice wise, there's only two things.
Keep learning. Every. Single. Day. It doesn't matter what it is, as long as it's something you didn't know yesterday.
Build things. Aim for a website a week. Even if it's just some dorky site that plays Hiyayayayayayaya on repeat for 24 hours a day. You'll be solving problems and getting experience building things.
Once you start to feel more comfortable with Javascript and HTML/CSS start to look into the various tools and frameworks that exist for those languages, (there are thousands). The big ones being:
I'm probably missing some, but I'm braindead from calc. Start with jQuery though if you are looking to learn more about intermediate/advanced Javascript.
- jQuery
- Bootstrap / Foundation
- SASS/LESS
- AngularJS / ReactJS / EmberJS
- NodeJS
Yup right here.
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=756776
Yeah right now I've just been going through the Web Design track on Treehouse and hoping once I finish that I'll feel comfortable using a text editor and making a site from scratch. Right now I haven't a clue how to make a site from scratch. Of course right now I'm learning more in dept stuff about CS and the stuff I was doing in the web design course is starting to make sense. Kind of getting a clue on how to make a website from nothing lol.
On a side note, I'm quite proud of myself for actually sitting and learning something since usually I just distract myself with the internet or something rather than sit there and learn lol. Like last time I got stuck and just completely gave up. But for the most part I've taken time nearly every day to at least watch a new video and learn something.
I wouldn't call it strictly better, it doesn't have functors for example.
need some help with printing out an array of strings in c
The warning is below
warning: format ‘%s’ expects argument of type ‘char *’, but argument 2 has type ‘char **’ [-Wformat=]
printf("%s\n",names);
edit: ok it seems printf wasn't designed for an array of strings and I have to feed each string element separately? for loop then?
Code:
#include<stdio.h>
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
char *names[]={"name1", "name2", "name3", "name4"};
printf("%s\n",names);
return 0;
}The warning is below
warning: format ‘%s’ expects argument of type ‘char *’, but argument 2 has type ‘char **’ [-Wformat=]
printf("%s\n",names);
edit: ok it seems printf wasn't designed for an array of strings and I have to feed each string element separately? for loop then?
Pegasus Actual
Gold Member
Yes, for loop.
I tried an array with integer elements and printf didn't work either. so printf requires you to specify the index of the elements?
Something like this:
Code:
char *names[] = {"name1", "name2", "name3"};
int i;
for (i=0; i < 3; i++)
printf("%s\n", names[i]);thanks for the reply.
I got the solution to it.
I was confused because I could print both of the following examples
Code:
char name[] ="Apple";
char *name1 = "Orange";
printf("%s %s\n", name, name1);That kinda works, but it's not quite right. A string is an array itself (of chars). There's no real string type in C. Format strings will print your char* up to a null character ('\0').
the pointer to the head of an array and the first element are the same. So name[1] and name with both point to "Apple" which is why that worked out.
This is not correct.
name[1] is not only the second element in the name[] array, but it is a character ('p), not a char*.
ooof, you are right. Thought it was an array of char *. Thoroughly embarrassed on the index slip up though... I'm handing over my programmer card.
cpp_is_king
Member
I think you meant name and &name[0] are the same
name[x] is just syntactic sugar for *(name+x)
I did.
Do you understand why it is not possible to pass an array of integers to printf? Because it illustrates an important lesson about C programming.
memory management is paramount?
oh, ok
Thanks everyone, this has been helpful.
Speaking of C, I've started to like it a lot more after I did our memory management exercise a while ago. There's something to doing things at such a low level and with that much freedom, when you code according to how you think things really work underneath the surface and it ends up doing its job perfectly.
Doubt I'll ever use it if given a choice but as an exercise it was fun.
Doubt I'll ever use it if given a choice but as an exercise it was fun.
Treechopper
Member
C is a jet fighter. In HLLs nothing is faster, but it requires far more attention and practice. I hated it at first, but it's my goto language now.
More specifically, if you just pass a pointer to an array of integers, you are only specifying the start of the array, not the end. There is no way for printf to know where an array of integers ends, because printf just sees the contents of memory, and it can't tell if the bits it sees are one of the integers in the array or data from another variable or uninitialized data.
So any time you want to pass an array to another function, you also need to either pass its length or use a guard value to indicate the end of the array.
tonysidaway
Member
Yes, probably. Fortran 66 used to have rules for format specifiers that allowed a whole array to be printed; it worked well for tabulations. Most modern (post-1970) languages lack the specific focus on batch processing that made it worthwhile to put that kind of thing into a language spec. If you want that kind of library facility, you write it yourself. It's fairly trivial.
If you are doing any sort of iterative operation there is going to be some kind of loop construct *somewhere*. However, it is possible to hide the iteration within the library function. You could have a PrintfArray system/library function that would allow you to print arrays without doing iteration in the user code.
They key difference here is in the interface. In Java and C#, you could write a function that prints arrays that only takes an array type as a parameter. You can do the same thing in C++ with a vector data type. The C++/Java/C# containers have a length field encoded into the object, so it is possible to pass them as a single parameter to a function. A C array does not have an encoded length, so you need to pass the length as a separate parameter.
If you want to pass a C array type without passing a separate length argument, the array must be terminated with a guard value. printf is capable of handling C-strings (which are char arrays) because they have a NUL character as the guard value. However using only guard values can be dangerous because you can't place an upper bound on the length of the array. This is the basis of buffer overflow security vulnerabilities. You can try this out by passing printf a char pointer to a region of memory without a NUL terminator. It will probably print a bunch of extra junk and then segfault.
threetri333
Banned
What is a good OS to code on? I don't have a Mac, so I either have Windows 8.1 or some version of Linux.
If Linux, which one? There are so many. I'm looking for ease of use and little frustrations.
If Linux, which one? There are so many. I'm looking for ease of use and little frustrations.
Treechopper
Member
The one you're most comfortable using. Ubuntu is the easiest distro to get into and Linux is a great place to learn to program so I'd tip my hat to that direction.
threetri333
Banned
I've heard of Elementary and Linux Mint. Are there better alternatives?
I have a very high end desktop.
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/jNyhTW
Treechopper
Member
Linux will run on just about anything so even if you have something old or crappy you'll be fine.
Both of those distros are basically a version of Ubuntu with a different graphical front end. Ubuntu is easy to get into and has a lot of support. If you're wanting to get started programming without much hassle, that's your best bet.
HarryHengst
Member
Does anyone here have any experience with F#? It seems cool but its also kinda blowing my mind (although the syntax kinda reminds me of SQL, which i use heavily in my job).
Mostly curious if people use it and if so,what they do with it.
Mostly curious if people use it and if so,what they do with it.
I think it's fun to explore different OS, but if you want something powerful, quick, and easy just grab Ubuntu and install gnome.
Seconding Ubuntu for what you described.
tonysidaway
Member
Windows is quite a good choice of platform, especially if you intend to code applications that will run on Windows. The Microsoft way of doing things is quite different, so if you learn how to do things on Linux you will probably have to relearn the same thing on Windows. On the other hand, support for some languages is much better on Linux or OSX (which is a Unix-like operating system underneath).
Both are Ubuntu based, which is to say debian in lineage. Just take it slow, learn a bit of bash (the terminal language as well as the scripting language to automate terminal tasks)
Familiarize yourself with updating your OS and it's package (via the package manager.)
Learn how to download new programs via the package manager.
That's pretty much all you need to get started, everything else you learn as needed.
cpp_is_king
Member
Since you specifically are looking for ease of use and little frustrations, I would choose Windows without a moment of hesitation, and I would question any other choice.
I'd agree, with the exception being C coding.
cpp_is_king
Member
Hmm, no, that's not really related to the reason. Suppose you have this code:
Code:
const int foo[] = {1, 2, 3, 4, 5};Let's look at this "foo" thing in a debugger.
My debugger shows me this:
Code:
Name Value Type
foo 0x011f6ae4 const int[5]0x011f6ae4 is a memory location. That's what a pointer (e.g. array) is. Just like integers hold values like 10, or -50, pointers also hold values, but those values are memory locations. Just to confirm this I will use my debugger to dump the memory at location 0x011f6ae4.
0x011F6AE4 01 00 00 00 02 00 00 00 03 00 00 00 04 00 00 00 05 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 .............................
integers are 4 bytes each, so looking at this dump shows you what an array looks like. Every 4 bytes there's a new integer. The first 4 bytes are "01 00 00 00" and the second set of 4 bytes is "02 00 00 00" and the third set is "03 00 00 00" etc. So it's something like this:
Code:
| foo[0] | foo[1] | foo[2] | foo[3] | foo[4] |
0x011F6AE4 |01 00 00 00|02 00 00 00|03 00 00 00|04 00 00 00|05 00 00 00|00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 .............................Since a pointer is just like any other variable where the value contains an address, the following lines are all equivalent.
Code:
printf("%d", foo);
printf("%d", 18836196); // This is 0x011F6AE4 converted to decimal.
printf("18836196");
int value = 18836196;
printf("%d", value);In other words, it's just going to print the address. If you want to print 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 you have to pass to pass 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 into printf. Just like you would expect
Code:
printf("%d", 1);to print 1, if you want to print 1 from the array you need to pass it the 1st value, or:
Code:
printf("%d", foo[0]);cpp_is_king
Member
Strange, because I was going to primarily recommend it for C and C++, with not as strong of a recommendation for other languages like Java, Python, etc.
Why do you consider C as the exception? Visual C++ is free, installs with 0 understanding of a command shell, and will get someone up and running faster than any other platform. And the debugger is better than anything else on any platform too.
I think it's because of C's history being written as the language for Unix, and unix being the OS for C. I'm certainly partial to GCC and posix compliance. Used to the gcc libs, the man pages and gdb.
I've used things like CCS on windows to write embedded C, really handing for looking at and manipulating memory in real time. So I see the value of a full development environment. But I feel linux allows me to pull away the abstraction further, and work closer to the OS and the hardware.
But I've only used mingw in windows, so that is also where I'm coming from. I think I'll try out Visual C++ on your recommendation now. But I'm glad I've at least developed foundations in a linux environment.
cpp_is_king
Member
FWIW the Windows API is C based too. It's just that most people coming from a non-Windows background never get exposure to it because they start with MinGW, and then try to use the half-baked posix api through this additional layer. Not saying the posix api is "half-baked" its native environment, btw, just that certain aspects of it don't map well to windows at a fundamental level, and as such using it is clunky through MinGW and doesn't really get you everything the OS has to offer.
I think it's just what you're accustomed to. Personally I feel that programming on Windows gets me as close as I could possibly want to the OS and the hardware just because I'm already familiar with all the native APIs and how to use everything, similar to how you're already familiar with glibc, man pages, etc.
cpp_is_king
Member
Glad to help If you're like me and like reading books, I would probably recommend this, widely considered the bible of Windows system programming. Nothing about GUI apps here though. And even though it's called Windows via C/C++, it's really via C. The book uses C++ in a few places to make some things more convenient, but the actual Windows API it uses is all C-based.
I'm not sure how much Windows knowledge is already assumed though. The first Windows book I ever read was this one. It's a pretty dry read but it might cover some more fundamental stuff that the other book assumes, and even though it's 15 years old, almost everything is still relevant.
(BTW, for starting out. In Visual Studio make sure you create a "Console Application", and not a "Win32 Application". otherwise you will get an ugly looking WinMain function that you probably won't know how to make sense of unless you read the Petzold book).
One thing I like about the Windows API is how much control you have over everything. It leads to functions with some unwieldy signatures sometimes, but you can do really crazy stuff.
If you get stuck, feel free to ask!
If you're like me and like reading books, I would probably recommend this, widely considered the bible of Windows system programming. Nothing about GUI apps here though. And even though it's called Windows via C/C++, it's really via C. The book uses C++ in a few places to make some things more convenient, but the actual Windows API it uses is all C-based.I'm not sure how much Windows knowledge is already assumed though. The first Windows book I ever read was this one. It's a pretty dry read but it might cover some more fundamental stuff that the other book assumes, and even though it's 15 years old, almost everything is still relevant.
(BTW, for starting out. In Visual Studio make sure you create a "Console Application", and not a "Win32 Application". otherwise you will get an ugly looking WinMain function that you probably won't know how to make sense of unless you read the Petzold book).
One thing I like about the Windows API is how much control you have over everything. It leads to functions with some unwieldy signatures sometimes, but you can do really crazy stuff.
If you get stuck, feel free to ask!
Treechopper
Member
Ok, I'm trying to use the rename() function in C to move a file from a directory to the /tmp directory, but it keeps failing. It'll work in /home, /Treechopper, /Documents, but not /tmp. What do I not understand?
is there some sticky permission bit set?
Treechopper
Member
Standard /tmp directory. drwxrwxrwt
Are there any symbolic links in the path?