Ok, what with everyone and the neighbor beginning iPhone development, I decided to start learning C++, to make Windows programs, and maybe make a bit of money on the side or something. Also, if I do ever decide to develop for iPhone, the two languages are very similar. This could help me have cross-platform compatibility with whatever I decide to write. But does anyone have any advice and/or any books? Perhaps some public domain code? Or where should I start?
I don't want to make a game, per se. I'm talking about like, making tools for Windows, for whatever purpose. Perhaps start with something that has public API's.
Here's my advice: more important than learning a specific language, you need to learn how to Program. Learning how to Program will teach you skills that are independent of language and will make switching between languages almost trivial. In my opinion, the most important part of Programming to learn is object orientation. That being said, I feel the best way to learn object orientation is via Java. I don't know of any good Java tutorials off hand, but I'd just Google for one. Once you learn how to Program, moving from Java to C++ shouldn't be hard, it's for the most part just a matter of learning new syntax: you'll still be Programming in the same way. After years of development, I've found the best way to learn a language and how to program is to think of a project, then implement it. Once you get through the basic tutorial, come up with an idea. Maybe a simple game, maybe a bare-bones text viewer/editor, don't try to tackle something too big at first. Use Google to figure out how to do what you want to do. So, for the text viewer, you'd want to Google how to read files in Java. You'd be surprised how much you learn by just jumping into something. HTH
