newbie coder desperate for advice!

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    • Enums, and a great free JAVA resource

      Enumerations are neat. They are simply integers with named values, so if you were put

      enum LIST_NAME = {OPTION1, OPTION2, OPTION3, OPTION4 = 100);

      You can use LIST_NAME = 0, or LIST_NAME = OPTION1 interchangeably. It is similar as creating a (have to use a final variable in java) #define called OPTION1 and setting it to 0. However, I don't believe OPTION1 will have meaning for integers other than LIST_NAME (I don't usually use these things)

      Note: The numbering starts at one, and increments one for each item in the list. You can set your own starting number, or your own individual numbers.

      Now, I wholeheartedly suggest you go to javabook.org, which is a FREE, full-length textbook, among other things. You, however, should check out the EasyEvents tutorial, which is a bottom up tutorial on making yourself a really easy applet structure (if I remember correctly). The author is a real cool guy (retired now), I had him for CS 2, and its THE class I learned the most in for CS.

      His book is great, a great read and very informative. It's more of a tutorial than a full-blown reference, but at the beginning you can know nothing about Java or programming, and if you finish the whole book, you'll be a pro at both (he gets into really advanced topics, which a lot of primers don't). It IS a school book, though, so its less technical and more theoretical, but he does cover Java very thoroughly
      -Larrik Jaerico

      www.LarrikJ.com
    • RE: Enums, and a great free JAVA resource

      Hehehehe, all C features and types are in C++ (in theory).

      Yes, they are definately in there. In fact, it's not difficult to picture how things like HRESULT could be an enum type, though I don't know that it is.
      -Larrik Jaerico

      www.LarrikJ.com
    • RE: newbie coder desperate for advice!

      Originally posted by GerryFinally for beginners in DirectX, I loved "Tricks of the Windows Game Programming Gurus"...


      It was good, and I have "Tricks of the 3D Game Programming Gurus" as well - software 3D!

      Premier's Game Development Series is pretty good - "The Zen of Direct3D Game Programming" being a good starting point since it runs through a basic 3D render engine. Not a full game engine, not even a simple one, but a fairly rich render engine. It will definintely get you "up and running" with Windows 3D programming.

      That and the "3D Math Primer for Graphics and Game Development." This one pulled the why and wherefore from the hat after Zen....

      Anyway - just my $2 (inflation, you know).

      Rich
      "Your job is not to die for your country. Your job is to make some other poor sod die for his."
    • RE: Enums, and a great free JAVA resource

      All good programmers feel the same way ;)

      Theory is important, and isn't usually taught in books that tell you how to program a specific language. Everything involves looking stuff up in references to amke sure you are using the right function with the right parameters, and the only way to get good at that is to keep trying (and know exactly what to look for, else you should figure that out first).

      Seriously, though, if you understand pointers well, you know what a stack and a queue is, you know how to write a linked list, and you cringe whenever you use an array, you shoud be fine.

      Oh, and learn assembly. It's easy, always useful, fast, and will make you understand everything else about programming better. I know a great online tutorial for RISC MIPS assembly (which is used in the playstation, among other things), which I can link here if you are interested in it, but it isn't Intel assembly, and therefore you can't directly use it (most of the theory applies, though). Plus, it'll make sure you are real comfortable with binary and hexadecimal, which are absolute must-knows, especially in debugging.

      Why do I give advice? I'm nobody.

      You'll never know everything, though, and its not shameful to use references, not at all.
      -Larrik Jaerico

      www.LarrikJ.com
    • RE: Enums, and a great free JAVA resource

      What is assembly? of-course i've heard it used often, but never really knew what it ment.

      I'll do a search for RISC MIPS and see what comes up. And i do appreciate the advice.

      -------------------------------

      Ok, i did the search and that came up a little... empty. i think i may need that link.
      Wort wort wort.

      The post was edited 1 time, last by Kaimera ().

    • Nothing like neccesity to help you expand. It's kind of hard to learn things just to learn them. I wish I could think of a fake assignment for ya, but I'm blank...

      Wait, how bout this?
      1) Write a matchmaking program that will store members in a database with relevant info, and find matches for the member. Th program should not use Win32/MFC/directX in any form. All input and output shall be within the DOS prompt.

      Your program will have the following functions:
      -Add new member
      -List all members
      -Remove member
      -Find match for member given a member name

      You can do more, but I figure this is a good exercise to get your feet grounded in learning a language. When you're done, zip up your files and post them here.
    • Don't think of it as databasing, think of it as reading and writing from a file.

      In this case, you can make it a text file. Make it so that your program can save all member data into a text file... and when it starts up, it can load all member data from that text file.
    • You've been given some good advice.

      I have an application that I wrote (program to track my comic book collection) that I've used to teach myself many things though the years.

      DOS programming (it started on an Apple IIe)
      Windows, MFC
      SQL Server
      currently porting it to .NET on the weekends

      If you can find an application like this that you will actually use you gain debugging practice in your new platform or framework