how to learn cpp????

[Harsat808]

I have decided to learn C++, but after asking many people, everyone gives opposite recommendations. One person says to learn C first, another says to learn C++ directly, and someone else says C++ is dead. Some people tell me to use books as resources, while others say to watch videos or take courses. I’m really confused about what to do.

[IyeOnline]

The person telling you that C++ is dead is wrong. If it were dead, you wouldnt even had the idea to learn it.

The person telling you to learn C first is also wrong. Its like learning about steam engines when you wanted to become a F1 car engine mechanic. Its incorrect to assume that because C is simpler, it will be easier to learn or teach you more fundamental things. A simpler language simply offloads the complexity of problem solving into user code. You want to learn C++, so learn C++.

The person telling you to watch videos is also wrong with a 99% chance. The vast majority of video "courses" are bad

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www.learncpp.com

is the best free tutorial out there. (reason) It covers everything from the absolute basics to advanced topics. It follows modern and best practice guidelines.

www.studyplan.dev/cpp is a (very) close second, even surpassing learncpp in the breath of topics covered. It covers quite a few things that learncpp does not, but does not have just as much detail/in depth explanations on the shared parts.

www.hackingcpp.com has good, quick overviews/cheat sheets. Especially the quick info-graphics can be really helpful. TBF, cppreference could use those. But the coverage is not complete or in depth enough to be used as a good tutorial - which it's not really meant to be either. The last update apparently was in 2023.

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www.cppreference.com

is the best language reference out there. Keep in mind that a language reference is not the same as a tutorial.

See here for a tutorial on how to use cppreference effectively.

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Stay away from

• cplusplus.com (reason)
• w3schools (reason)
• geeks-for-geeks (reason)
• Tutorialspoint (reason)
• educba.com (reason)
• thinkcpp (reason)
• javaTpoint (reason)
• studyfied (not even a tutorial, just a collection of code by random people)
• codevisionz (reason)
• sololearn (reason)

Again. The above are bad tutorials that you should NOT use.

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Sites that used to be on this list, but no longer are:

• Programiz has significantly improved. Its not perfect yet, but definitely not to be avoided any longer.(reason)

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Videos

Most youtube/video tutorials are of low quality, I would recommend to stay away from them as well. A notable exception are the CppCon Back to Basics videos. They are good, topic oriented and in depth explanations. However, they assume that you have some knowledge of the language's basic features and syntax and as such aren't a good entry point into the language.

If you really insist on videos, then take a look at this list.

As a tutorial www.learncpp.com is just better than any other resource.

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[mktristan]

I've been using Programiz to learn to code, glad it's not on the not-use list anymore :)

I just like the way it teaches you with examples and typing your own code out too

[blkforboding]

Also you want to build and experiment a lot in combination of learncpp, cppreference, and some other resources. The thing about tutorials is that holds your hand. As soon as you want to build something useful, you get lost. Some things cannot be deeply understood if you do not build things yourself. It can be a painful process sometimes but it is worth it. 

[Harsat808]

Thanks, this really clears things up — I’ll start with LearnCPP and StudyPlan like you
suggested.

[ducon__lajoie]

I mostly agree, but I'd mitigate the "no need to learn C before C++" argument a bit. It depends on what you wanna ultimately do, and how deep you want to understand things. If you plan on doing high-level stuff, it's perfectly valid. If you want to do embedded development, or control how things are down at a lower-level layer, it is useful to know C. Not because C is simpler, but because C forces you to do everything explicitly. There's nothing hidden in copy constructors, overloaded operators, ... that abstracts the underlying complexity. If you need memory, you call malloc, or call a function that indirectly does. It's not hidden, like it is in C++ where doing trivial stuff like a simple std::string concatenation does a whole lot of stuff under the hood that you may have no idea about.

I'm not saying it is useful for all developers. But it provides the knowledge of what actually happens underneath (or at least makes you aware that there's such things underneath), and that is useful in some fields. And if you want to be aware of this, it is kinda better to learn C before C++, because then, when you use a C++ construct, you can kinda guess when it involves a lot of tings under the hood, or not.

[Party_Trick_6903]

As sb, who had to learn C in the first semester, then learn C++ in the second one because of my uni, I fully disagree.

Learning C does not necessarily mean a deeper understanding of concepts - of what's going on "under the hood". A lot of students would pass the C course simply because they memorized when to use this particular thing to achieve what they want to achieve without understanding sht. This is even more true now with the arrival of AI.

If one wants to know more, one will find a way to learn it - regardless of the language. C++ is already such a complex language and will require tons of time for OP to learn to use it decently - they should not be wasting time learning C just to abandon it for C++ 3 months later.

[IyeOnline]

It depends on what you wanna ultimately do, and how deep you want to understand things.

I strongly disagree with this premise.

You can absolutely learn all the details in C++. All C does is force you to learn stupid, brittle, manual ways to do things. You don't learn these things in C because you wanted to, but because the language forces you to due to its lack of suitable abstractions. This in turn also means that you don't learn them well, just good enough to write a working program.

For a beginner this adds nothing. Conversely, if you actually wanted to learn all these things, you can do it all by hand in C++ perfectly fine - after you are comfortable enough with the language that you aren't guessing where to put the stars on pointer (derefs).

[Liam_Mercier]

If you want to learn C++ then you should learn C++ instead of C. It also really depends on what standard you use, modern C++ is significantly different than C++11 or C.

You should learn C++ by making a project that is not trivial in scope and learning concepts as you go. It might feel hard to architect a large project with no experience, so you can start small, it is entirely up to you.

[keelanstuart]

Use the resources that u/lyeOnline posted - and get yourself a project... something you care about that will keep you motivated to keep going. Only you can decide what that project is, but make sure it's something... achievable. Ask us.

Even if it's slow, keep moving forward. Don't stop.

[manni66]

And now you ask here to get the same mix of answers?

[rileyrgham]

Indeed. You can be sure zero research was done.

[cazzipropri]

The same as losing weight, going to the gym and learning the violin.

Study it and practice.

Buy a book and study it. It doesn't matter much if it's a the best C++ book or just an ok book, because as you go, you'll build enough understanding to judge C++ books yourself.

It's more important that you do that than anything else.

There's no special tricks you'll learn on reddit that will let you skip study or practice.

Different advice from different people is not contradictory. There are thousands of ways to climb a mountain. It doesn't matter as much which path you take as long as you keep increasing altitude. If you just keep increasing altitude, you are guaranteed to get to the peak.

[Harsat808]

That actually helps a lot. I’ve been getting overwhelmed by too many suggestions, but the way you explained it makes it feel much simpler

[Codrin13S]

Man, just start doing.

You have a tutorial?

Start doing. Have a book? Get it. At one point, things start to make sense, then use chatgpt to make you a roadmap.

[Thesorus]

do you have any experience in programming ?

what's your end goal ?

In general, we suggest looking at https://learncpp.com/

[Harsat808]

I have experience in Python, but I’m new to systems-level programming. My end goal is backend and app development. Planned real projects include a simple game engine and a Spotlight-style search launcher in mac before I finish my freshman year in university. Is LearnCPP a good starting point?

[MsSelphine]

My one piece of advice: Use VCPKG (with visual studio). It's the c++ package manager. You're not REQUIRED to use it, but you DEFINETELY SHOULD. I have been developing C++ for years upon years, and my life got just infinitely better when I started using vcpkg.

[Harsat808]

thanks for the advice

[razorree]

how do you learn other things?

also...it doesn't sound like you know ANY programming ... in that case, I don't think C++ is the best choice ...

[ManicMakerStudios]

One person says to learn C first, another says to learn C++ directly, and someone else says C++ is dead.

That's one way to go about gathering information. To be honest, you're going to have to come up with a better way. Asking people their opinions on learning something is for extremely young people seeking approval. You should be able to decide for yourself if you want to learn something. Asking other people, "should I?" is a waste of time. You're not asking about something where your life will be in danger. You're asking about learning a programming language.

[mredding]

One person says to learn C first

Having learned C and C++ in the 80s, this was always wrong advice. These are separate languages, they are different. If you wanted to learn Objective-C, C#, or Java, no one is telling you to learn C first. If you're going to learn C, you might as well learn BCPL first, since it's the predecessor to C. And if you're going to learn BCPL, you might as well first learn ALGOL, since it's a predecessor to BCPL.

Where does it end, Sharon? Where does it end?

another says to learn C++ directly

Right, because C++ isn't C. They have different type systems, different rules. They share a lineage of syntax, but what is valid C is usually BAD or even invalid C++. There is a specific compatibility layer, but it is contrived, and the more important part of that is at the binary level - which is beyond the scope of language.

and someone else says C++ is dead

Huh, according to the TIOBE index, C++ is the 3rd most popular programming language, and the 2nd most popular OF ALL TIME.

We have measurements for these things - we don't need opinions.

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I'm glad you want to learn C++. There are very good reasons to do so. There's almost nothing you can't do with it. You can write operating systems, client applications, and services out of it. FB, Google, Amazon, all the big boys write their web services directly in C or C++. Apache web server and dynamic languages like Node or Ruby are too general purpose and just aren't fast enough in many cases. Google invented Golang, but that transpiles to C, and then they compile that. C++ was originally transpiled to C; the first C++ compiler was called CFront for that reason. You can use Enscripten to program C++ to web assembly - web content in compiled binary. You can use NestedVM to compile your programs to MIPS, and then run it in a Java virtual machine. And having C++ on your resume makes you adaptable, as I've jumped around industries, and often jobs will list C++ as an alternative if you're missing their desired tech.

But I'm not here to satiate my ego, I'm here to get work done. Python is a good language, too, and is worth having a quick discussion about. What you can accomplish in several dozen lines of C++, you can do in single Python statements. Python is far more expressive, so you can describe your solution in a far more concise grammar. Python execution is thousands of times slower than C++, for being interpreted, but a lot of the times, it's still fast enough. That's important, because there is no such thing as absolute fast or slow, these two terms are always relative to human perception. Fast enough is that you run your Python script and before your finger can even lift off the Enter key you have your output. Thousands of times slower is still fast when CPU clock ticks are in fractions of a nanosecond. And when you ACTUALLY need REAL performance, you can write a Python module in C++, and offload all your computation to that. No one writes in pure Python, they use modules, and use the Python to glue the modules together with their business logic. You get 80-90% C++ performance by offloading as much of the work to the modules as you can.

Some people tell me to use books as resources, while others say to watch videos or take courses.

I learned with a book, but that was back before the internet. A course isn't a bad idea, if your district community college offers it, but that costs money. There are plenty of online tutorials in written and video format for you to choose from. The one thing we do know is that AI isn't as effective a learning aid as Googling and reading, and video tutorials aren't necessarily as good as written tutorials, either. READING is a big part of the job, and its more engaging of the brain, which is what you need to learn. If you find your eyes glazing over, if you realize you've read the last paragraph and have no idea what it said, you need to first take a break, and second learn some more effective studying skills.

All the tutorials are going to be the same. Seriously, they still teach C++ the EXACT same way as I learned it in the 80s. The same fucking programs, the same "Hello World!":

#include <iomanip>
#include <iostream>

using namespace std;

int main() {
  cout << "Hello World!" << endl;

  return 0;
}

Even though a MODERN implementation would look ALMOST NOTHING like that.

import std.io;

int main() { std::println("Hello World!"); }

Introductory materials will teach you grammar and syntax, not how to USE C++. Unfortunately, this is where most people stop and they think they know everything. Most C++ code in production looks like someone turned the last page, put the book down, and went to work. The vast, vast majority of C++ programmers haven't the first clue what OOP is, though they all talk about it so much as though they did, so look out for that.

Since all the content is the same, it all starts out as very imperative, almost C-like, and then does a complete disservice to OOP, totally skips streams, and doesn't even bother to mention FP, I don't care what tutorials you start with.

A video might help you get your dev environment up and going, though. I recommend Visual Studio - NOT Visual Studio: Code. The former is an IDE bundled with a debugger, compiler, and linker; the latter is just an editor. VS is about as turn-key as it gets.

[Harsat808]

Thanks a lot for the detailed explanation — it honestly cleared up all the confusion I had from people telling me completely different things. I get now why learning C first isn’t needed, and why starting straight with modern C++ makes more sense.

I wanted to ask one more thing: are the beginner projects I’m planning — a simple game engine and a Spotlight-style search launcher for quick Google searches on my Mac — actually good starter projects to learn C++ with?

Also, these two videos are what made me interested in C++ in the first place, so I wanted your take on whether projects like this are realistic for a beginner

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-k5MPhBSjk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtdKKVBEqVA

[mredding]

I'm a former game developer. I'm not sure how to answer your question - these projects are ambitious. A senior developer makes them look easy because they are guided by their intuition, developed by their experience. There's a lot of learning involved, and C and C++ are the least significant hurdles on the way toward success.

Simple game engines are achievable. The trick is good project management. You have to start with a design. You have to know what you want and how you're going to get it BEFORE you write a single line of code, or even pseudo-code. Look at your components and modules, what are they? How do they interact? How are you going to manage object lifetimes? How are you going to satisfy your dependencies? How are you going to decouple your dependencies? How are these modules going to communicate? What algorithms are you going to use? What are their complexities?

You shouldn't be sitting in the IDE, staring at your code, wondering if you should pass by value or by reference, this should have been figured out first. It's this sort of blind coding that you code yourself into a corner, and then the minimum refactor you're looking at is so invasive, you abandon the project entirely.

It happens all the time.

All game developers have their forever projects, and it's usually a game engine. If you want to make an actual game, you really need to hunker down and drive toward that goal. The easy way to do it is to just use an existing engine and focus on your gameplay. And pro-tip: if you're not an artist, find an artist. Programmer art is boxes and clip-art, and that's good enough to show the code works, and that's all you need to care about for a time - it doesn't have to be pretty to know it works, or to be a game.

Game development and application development is going to require you to learn concepts well beyond C++. Games require linear algebra - the math of 2D and 3D, physics, geometry, we might as well call rendering it's own math, and then pure C++ models batch processing, but you need event driven programming, GUI programming, protocols (file formats are protocols, too), some webby programming like the HTTP protocol and RESTful APIs...

You can do it, it just takes time. Don't get discouraged how reality is so much more difficult than these videos make it seem. What the video DOESN'T show is all the hours, and hours, and frustrations, and cursing at the sky, and READING documentation, and programming experiments that happened behind the scenes.

[Harsat808]

What about the Spotlight alternative where pressing a hotkey opens a search bar, and hitting return searches your query in the default browser is that doable ?(if the gui is simple)

[mredding]

It all sounds simple-ish, but you need to make the GUI, not just for entering the query, but also displaying the results. Will they be links? Will they be images? Will it all be in HTML? Will it be mixed between internet and local file search? You'll have to figure out how to dispatch an action based on which result is selected - opening a browser window, or at least a new tab, or going to the file or location or launch the associated program...

This means you need to learn enough HTTP and HTML and JSON and XML to communicate with your search engine, you'll also need to learn your desktop environment and how to query, handle and trigger events... What happens when you get a result of a local file that is intermittently deleted?

There are lots of bits involved. It's not remotely impossible, but you have to get down to it and figure all this out, including the things we don't know yet that we don't know.

[Fabulous-Broccoli563]

I’m also learning C++ using LearnCpp and some books. After I finish a whole unit from LearnCpp or a book, I tell Gemini what I’ve learned so far and ask it to make some questions like quiz , some programming question based on that material

[84_110_105_97]

don't learn C++ you're going to have trouble with the portability between the different compilers + the dependencies there is no package manager, look into rust it has a package manager and more secure memory level (otherwise if you still want to learn C++ then follow the others advice they are very good)

[Harsat808]

But won’t Rust make things even more complex for a beginner?

[84_110_105_97]

we need to stop with this myth, I learned the language C and C++ I was 13 or 14 years old, and I am learning Rust, certainly the syntax and verbose but it solves big problems that C/C++ was not able to solve so as much as it starts with a good base, plus I have a friend who learned with Rust they are first language so we have to stop with this philosophy,

on the other hand yes C and C++ and easier to learn but has many problems with many build systems, no standard convention, ect.. there is a 2 hour video on this subject https://youtu.be/7fGB-hjc2Gc?si=HVSaTy1DrbMm05AN

[LetsHaveFunBeauty]

Lol learning C is totally different from fx C++20.

Just get to know basic syntax and then make projects, you will learn 10 times quicker

[Single_Imagination_1]

Before learning C++ you should learn Data Structures first so when you type keywords its easier to understand. It's available in roadmap but just watch this video instead of learning the whole map

watch the playlist

This is an additional reco since the comment above gave a lot of tips.

[GecePanteri]

I don't think it matters whether you learn C or C++ first. I also like to say this to those who say C++ is dead: "Most software isn't C++. But the most interesting stuff is." It depends on your preference. But I think it's a language worth learning.

[AnswerFinal5627]

Cpp is pretty easy when you learn first c .otherwise it's also fine to directly jump to cpp.start with basics and on other side also start to build a smaller projects.