After spending 12 years trying to learn C++ unsuccessfully. 9 of those years while being here. I have decided to focus on my other loves in life (besides my family) and give up once and for all on programming. I'm going into the culinary arts (cooking) and who knows, maybe one day you all will be stopping by a place I cook at and own? Oh well like I said, it has truly been fun getting to know everyone over the past 9 years and wish every one the best of luck in all their future endeavors.

Just don't send us fruitcake.

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I don't like the pic.

Try C# before giving up. Seriously, it's by far the least insane programming language there is.

Specter Phoenix, I wish you well. Do stop by from time to time, of course.

Real men program with punch cards.

That's a long time. It shouldn't take that long. There are books such as "Teach Yourself C++ in 21 days".

That aside though, it isn't necessary to know each and every language facility of C++ to be productive with it.

I second the suggestion to try C#. It has been my main programming language at the day job for the last four years and I even learned some concepts from it which I adapted into my C++ programming style.

Anyway, Goodbye. Live long and prosper.

It depends on what you mean by "learn". I spent 2 years programming in C++ and I think I have learned it. By learned I mean I can program efficiently in it. I know how to use OOP and the various language constructs... I still don't know everything of course.

But, if after 12 years you didn't learn to use the language, then I agree with you, do anything, just don't program.

Good luck.

I bought a soldering iron yesterday.

Yeah, we know that xkcd strip is hilarious so no need to post it again.

Gee, I'd think someone who doesn't enjoy programming wouldn't waste 12 years of their life on it...

C# is excellent, but I'd suggest Python. C# has a lot of C++ heritage, which is great if you know C++ already, but counter-intuitive if you don't. Python is much easier to learn even if you do know C++.

I'll do it anyway, just to annoy you....
Real programmers use rocks

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As I've blathered before, IMO C++ is more trouble than it's worth. The real obstacles to programming IMO are:
1) Understanding the problem "cold" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grok
2) Allowing yourself big enough blocks of time to get warmed up to a problem
3) Building truly self sufficient modules that you can make a procedure or function that solves a problem well enough that you can treat it as a magic box and don't have to worry about how it works anymore.

Here is an easy to learn programming language for those that find C++ difficult:

http://homepages.cwi.nl/~steven/abc/

It will teach you quite a lot about programming.

I'm teaching myself python now.
I really hate weakly typed languages
(And it doesn't help that indentation is part of the syntax. Neither do the superfluous colons.)

I've gotten used to weakly typed languages. It can be nice at times being able to dynamically shape the code without lots of crazy changes. You do lose the comfort knowing that the code is consistent though.

I don't care for Python myself. I find it hard to read/write. Perhaps because I'm just not used to it. I don't know. I thought I was liking it, starting writing a program with it, got distracted, and when I returned couldn't read the code at all.

I really like Perl though. It's an awesome language. I have loose plans to learn Lisp/Scheme and Ruby now. I've heard good things about each of them.

I still prefer my C, C++, and C# though for appropriate applications. I guess Java too.

Don't listen to these guys. You've made a good decision. Enjoy life while you still can.

Did you confuse it with learning?

Same difference.

I've been reading the book, "Teach Yourself C++ Programming In 21 Days" off and on for about three years. The furthest I got was day 17. It's a very simplistic book that doesn't explain the logic behind the syntax. I think I found a few errata in it as well. Go enjoy life, learn to sail, play a musical instrument, write the book, "Teach Yourself To Pick Up Women In 21 Days", and drop by anytime.

But saying "I'm learning myself python now" would be a mistake

I figured out Python in six hours. Seriously, I borrowed a Python book from a friend the day before a homework assignment was due, figured out the language, then finished my assignment, in six hours. I totally love Python.

To the OP: not programming isn't a reason to stop hanging out at A.cc. I'd wager that quite a few of us hardly program at all these days. Until I picked up Python, I pretty much hadn't programmed in a year, except for a few small homework assignments.

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Haven't seen this thread in a while.

I think you are confusing "weakly typed" with "dynamically typed" (or maybe duck typed) Python is strongly typed. ^[1]

Python is nice but I prefer ruby. Pretty much the same language but with a far better syntax (imo, obviously).

Oh, right. He keeps changing his name, so I had forgotten who the OP was.

Common guys, don't just talk about it. Share with us the history of Allegro.cc!

Programming isn't for everyone.

I have tried (unsuccessfully) to encourage friends with a passing interest to take it up.

But you have to LOVE it. Even if you only enjoy it a bit you won't find much success.

Good luck with everything.

This doesn't make sense to me. 12 years to learn C++.

Obviously C++ isn't for anyone but I think you might be exaggerating a bit.
If you have been learning continously for 12 years i'm pretty sure you have learned something, perhaps you are not at the level where you which to be and thus are considering yourself a failure because of that.

Not everyone on here is an expert programmer, I've been learning for the last 10 years and I'm not an expert programmer, I can make programs that work but my style sometimes includes a lot of hacks often.

With that said, good luck on your new adventures in cooking, I can see you using some of your programming knowledge in the cooking field. Exactly how? I'm sure if something thinks hard enough ideas will come.

I think that's the way it works. A programming language is a hack. It's a way for a human to understand binary.

Good luck.

Firstly, I don't think fruitcake will be part of the cooking curriculum. Secondly, I don't need to get "Picking up women in 21 days" as I'm married and have a 5 year old son. Thirdly, I'm not exaggerating on the 12 years, I started learning C++ in August of 97 and can do silly things with it but I have just got to a point where I am tired of trying to become good with it or programming. I'm 29 years old now and have wasted 12 years trying to learn C++, where as I'm already a good cook and love cooking so I'm just going for something that I already know how to do.

Actually, no this isn't the same old thread. I've already wiped my HDD on the desktop and gave it to my wife to use. Programming was the only reason I had the computer, and don't need it to pursue cooking (cept to find recipes) so I'm giving it to her for her yahoo, facebook, webshots, and movies(which reminds me I have to buy a new DVD burner to replace the one in the tower already). Might come and visit once in a while but pretty doubtful since I seldom visited here when I was trying to program. Well, like I said, it's been fun, bye.

"Programming is too hard :( "

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A word of caution then. I knew a guy who was a good and passionate amateur cook. His dream was to become a professional cook and work in a restaurant, so he tried to get a certificate.
He hated every minute of it and ultimately quit, deciding to do something else and keep the thing he loved as a hobby rather than start hating it. That may have been him and may not apply to you. Just be aware that you may end up not liking it as much as you think you will. There is something to be said for keeping things that you're passionate about as your hobby rather than your job.

If I wrote a sucky novel in English, would any of you tell me I should learn Spanish? That's essentially what's going on in cases like this.

People focus on the language too much. Programming is more about the art than the language.

I agree. A job should about making the most money for the least amount of work.

Matthew, any tips on how one can achieve something close that?

I tried to learn C++ for 2 years once then gave up and barely touched it since. My personal favorite language is Python now (A5 comes with an (almost complete) Python wrapper). Also one of the biggest plus points of Python to me is the indentation - I can grasp the block structure at a glance without all those confusing { and }. But I doubt it would make a difference for the OP... the basics of making a simple game like say pacman are about the same in any programming language.

I your novel is sucky in a particular language perhaps the reason might be you are not very expressive.While changing the language may not guarantee a success, moving from c++ to any other programming language is relatively easier than learning english and moving to Spanish IMO.

Gambling, drugs .

Or politics.

Trying to write a novel in, let's say Latin, or Ancient Greek, might be difficult. Try English first, which is simpler ;-).

So long, Stupid.

Use the search, Luke!
(Try threads started by the OP and, say, "goodbye" as the keyword.)

WRONG

Here little trolly, have some food.

One

Two

Don't feel bad about not getting anywhere with programming since most programming jobs have said goodbye and left to India.

Yes, it's this thread again. When is it religion's turn again? Poor world cup gets its turn only every 4th year.

I don't get that either. You obviously don't know C. I learned C++ after C and therefore I might have a C way of writing C++. And I bet I'm not the only one. For me C++ is nothing else than a superset of C. Anyone can take anything from C++ and use it in best ways. The more you take, the more you might turn your way of thinking. And eventually start thinking completely OO instead of procedural. I know this is not quite a one dimensional thing, but I feel I'm somewhere in the middle. I think I know what I should change in my coding style to get rid of C and go total C++. So far I haven't felt the need to do it. But I would never go back to plain C and stop creating C++ classes for this and that just because I don't use application classes or polymorphism or whatnot.

It's always religion's turn.

Oh,
I
see.

Let's check if there's a pattern. The first one was in late 2001 (12/2001), the second one in early 2003 (03/2003), the third one in late 2006 (10/2006) and this one in late 2010 (12/2010).

So:
12/2001
03/2003 time since previous thread: 14 or 15 months
10/2006 time since previous thread: 43 or 44 months
12/2010 time since previous thread: 50 or 51 months

Hm... nope no pattern there. Or none that is too obvious.

If you use a super computer to crunch that data you may be able to find some patterns.

But seriously the question I would ask to my friend is what kept you coming back to programming? Just curious, did you enjoy it, enjoy trying to conquer something difficult, wanted to do it for career purposes, loved the allegro community too much to leave, etc? Just curious

He'll be back.

One does not simply walk out of a.cc

Nope. There's some button-clicking involved.

If you look at the years you get a(n) = n*n - a(n-1) and then add 2000

I think I do know C. I've read the complete C99 standard multiple times for one reason or another. There's things I wouldn't know without looking them up like strict aliasing but I'd put those things mostly under compiler differences. So I guess I can say I know like 95% of C. Compared to that I do know about 20% of the C++98 standard and probably about 5% of C++1x. So I don't know the latter two at all basically. While I now could code a bit of C++ it would mean I'd constantly look up the things I don't know and waste a lot of time doing so. I'd learn more and more of it, but in the bits I've seen I already saw some major design flaws - and so I have no desire to know more of the language - I would consider it a waste of time. I preferred to switch to Python instead which is a whole new level when it comes to how advanced a language is.

Well, procedural is the much better choice for some things. It always depends what you are working on, but in a bigger project you likely can't rigidly apply one paradigm. Myself I do use a lot of OO though. But the syntactic additions which C++ has to make OO supposedly easier just seem all so badly done to me, right ideas but followed through in ad hoc and wrong ways.

My C code used polymorphism a lot (before I switched to Python) so that's not a reason to go C++ But of course for a large part it's a personal preference that I don't like C++ - I simply happen to dislike complicated things. It's also why I like Lua, even it's a bit weird (variables are global by default? arrays starting with 1?) but if you ignore the closures it's a really simple language.

Let's see... 15, 44, 51. The first digit is in fact a fibonacci-like sequence An = (An-1 + An-2) % 10, with A0 = 1 and A1 = 4. 1 + 4 = 5. So the next ten's digit must be 9. The second digits follow the reverse sequence, so the definition is something like An = (10 - An-1 - An-2) % 10. Next one's digit by this logic is 4. So I say we're going to see another similar thread in 94 months, thus at the end of 2017.

So based on your pattern detection when do you think we should expect the thread to re occur by the original poster?

Interesting... maybe by 2017 A5 will have that al_create_game() method. (No I don't have anything even remotely meaningful to contribute.)

By 2017 we might have an Allegro 6, so anything is possible.

If you calculate in the advancements from Allegro 3 to Allegro 4, and then Allegro 4 to Allegro 5, well, its nearly an exponential scale. Of course its taken about 6-8 years of any work at all to get Allegro 5 to where it is. So to get an Allegro 6 out the door by 2017, we'd probably need to start now.

I'll start:

void al_create_game()
{
   // todo
}

That wont do... I will expand it a bit:

typedef enum GameType
{
  Rpg,
  Monday,
  Wednesday,
  RTS
};

void al_create_game (GameType type)
{
  // todo
}

We sure we want to make this a void function?

Great, here are my contributions... good point about the void return type.

Somebody should just write a minimalist pong clone, compile it into allegro-game-5.1.so, and make the entry point al_create_game(). It would be a fun inside joke to use whenever. It would certainly put allegro ahead when n00bs ask how hard it is to create a game with Allegro.

You assume they know how to link against a library.

Yeah, you're right. Hold on, I have the C standards committee on the phone...

You know, we could patch GCC and MinGW to link to preinstalled Allegro libraries by default... For teh n00bs. I'm not going to do it, but you feel free.

This was so Funny I had a nice evil Laugh going.

quitting is for the weak. the strong adjust an keep trucking.

This remides me of the Simson EP where homer was trying to get a cup cake out of a Boobytraped ice box that shocked him when he touched it.

It also reminds we when i had to convice a girl in college not to give up her programing 4 year degree when she has only one semester left Todo.

Hmm. I first used C++ more than 12 years ago, and I still don't know it very well. Should I quit too?

He goes do something he enjoys and is better at. Don't you think that counts as adjusting?

Take Me for example. My spelling is crap.

I used a word that was easier to spell. at work I use text to speach apps to make sure I got the right words.

Take for example that girl i talked out. With the her degree she can become a business analyses, or a project manager. These job are still in the field but do less programing.

Using an easier word doesn't make it right. There is a huge difference between an icebox and a cupcake.

I was stuck on why an ice box would shock somebody, then I realized he meant "refrigerator".

in some countries its called an ice box

An ice box is, exactly as it says, a box with ice in it. It's not synonymous with "refrigerator".*

They may be used interchangeably in some places, though.

_{* Funnily enough, I had to use Firefox's spell checker to spell "refrigerator" properly.}

Refrigerators used to be iceboxes. They have since evolved, but they were called ice boxes for ages after they stopped using ice directly to cool things.

I think his point was that in some languages it's the literal translation of refrigerator.

I'm gonna jump in my horseless carriage and drive to the store to buy an icebox now.

I stand by my close-minded and factually dubious claim.

Hah, sorry, didn't read the sentence thoroughly. Sorry piccolo, you got it right. It was Bart though.