New To Programming. Where the heck do I begin?

marsniper27 · February 25, 2013

I recommend starting with basic C++ in Visual Studio 2012 Express (free): http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9816758
Here is a link with some tutorials: http://www.cplusplus.com/doc/tutorial/

When you are on a tutorial, do NOT go to the next one until you completely understand the one you're working on.

For example; on the first tutorial - "structure of a program".

You might know what "cout" does, it prints text to the console, right? But do you know what happens if you remove "using namespace std;" ?

The program won't compile, right? Well, if you add "std::" in front of "cout", it suddenly will again, because "cout" is a member of the "std" namespace. The "using namespace std;", easily put, removes the need to write std:: manually, but this isn't a good practice as you could encounter libraries or your own code having the same names for stuff and will mix with std. So it's always good to use a namespace or/and a prefix for functions and classes. Class functions are okay as they basically use the class as a namespace.

So it's stuff like this that I mean you should understand.

When you are ready to get into graphics, you usually just get into it. If you start searching randomly - you won't get anywhere. Trust me. ;( xD (unless it's easier to find now)

Hope this helps, and good luck! :)

(if you need help with something, you can always add me on Skype - gammaray24)

This is exactly what i would of suggested. cplusplus is what i used to start learning c++ years ago and really helped when we did programming in school.