Suggestions about advanced projects and advice

[Snaksa]

Hello! I have been learning C++ for around 2 years and I have gone through the concepts of data structures and classes. But now I finushed the two parts of the book from which I have been studying and I don't know what to do. Can you recommend me a good advanced project in which I need to use a data structure and I need to make at least 3 separate files with classes, because I want to write as much code as possible.
Also I want to develop desktop applications. Can you recommend me with what to continue? Maybe Qt or something? I started studying C# because maybe WPF can offer some more options. But I will appreciate your advice. What should I study next? Continue with C# and learn WPF or learn something related to C++?. I know that C++ has it's own technology like WPF called MFC, but I have heard that it is too old.
Greetings, Snaksa :)

[Snaksa]

Somebody?

[Dy7SLyTq]

this should be in lounge. you can make a calculator

[Snaksa]

Thanks for the suggestion. Once I made a application that takes an expression from the console and with binary tree solves it. I will post this topic in the longe as you said.

[dhayden]

Try writing a program to solve Sudoku puzzles. I wrote one of these and was surprised at how many data structures and algorithms I found myself using.

[ResidentBiscuit]

Stop learning for the sake of learning and start learning because you need to.

What this means, is go find a project you think will be challenging, or some project you want to contribute to. Then just start programming. You'll hit points where you need to learn something new, that's when you learn. Learning for the sake of learning is why people forget 75% of what they learned. They had no real motivation or need for learning it.

[Snaksa]

@Dhayden, once I made sudoku solver that solves a sudoku with given numbers in the grid. Maybe I should try to make a program that generates sudoku puzzle abd the user should solve it.

@ResidentBiscuit, I need an advanced project for the reasons you said. It is easier to learn new things. Can you recommend me a good project?

[Snaksa]

And can somebody advice me should I continue learning C# and then WPF or there is a good way to make modern desktop applications with C++?

[Script Coder]

If you are referring to GUIs I have heard that Qt is a good library to learn.

[o1vk4iN6]

WPF is windows specific and is not going to be supported by mono so it won't be cross platform. I'd also look into CSS and other web tools being used in applications to create and design the GUI. Qt provides some style sheets that are similar to CSS, as it is inspired by it.

[maniac]

Ok. So I will try to learn Qt. But I have a question that might not be for this forum. If it is not excuse me. I found that book and it seems good: http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Edition-Prentice-Software-Development/dp/0132354160

But it starts with describing the syntax and other things about the Qt code. It doesn't tell how to install Qt SDK on my PC and stuff like that.
I went to this site http://qt-project.org/downloads . And now I'm downloading the package for my windows - 32bit. When I install it I will download the Qt Creator and install it. Is this all? Should I connect somehow the Qt Creator and the installed Qt files? Or I just open Qt Creator and run the simple example from the book?

EDIT: I'm downloading the 5.1.1 package and i saw that Qt Creator is included in it. So the question is: Should I do something else or just run Qt Creator and start programming?

[S6k9GNh0]

You don't need Qt Creator to create Qt-based GUIs. It can help boost productivity though. It's more of just a frontend for QML as far as I understand.

Learning any toolkit in general that's in popular use is beneficial, whether it be wxWidgets, Qt, Boost, and so on. However, whenever I learned this, I chose goal, and used those toolkits to achieve those goals which both meant I was productive and learning at the same time.

To each his own though.

[Dy7SLyTq]

meh i usually just find a tutorial online. when ever i buy a book i find it doesnt help me much because when im confused i go look it up online. for example i bought the purple dragon book for compiler design (which was in java :( ) but I ended up using the udacity (which is an amazing site btw) to learn

[o1vk4iN6]

That book mentions Qt 4.3, i don't even think that version had Qt Creator...

As far as books go for GUI libraries i don't really see the point i mean i can't think of any API that is easier to follow than a GUI one. Let alone i don't get why there are books for APIs... your better of just experimenting with them. It's easier and you'll probably learn more than what a book can offer. As they almost always provide tools with drag and drop features that simplify the process greatly.

If you are choosing an API it should have the documentation you need otherwise depending on what it does and how large it is, it may not be worth using. Qt has basically anything you'll ever need in the documentation.

http://qt-project.org/doc/qt-5.1/qtdoc/qtinstaller.html

[Cubbi]

A friend of mine got himself involved with one of the third-party viewers for Second Life - that's quite a lot of C++ code (with some decent boost usage as well as its own legacy oddities), portable across three platforms, with lots of users with their bug reports and feature requests - that looks like decent exposure to programming, but of course you need to be interested in the product to do something like that.

[ResidentBiscuit]

Could contribute to Chromium. I believe that's pretty heavily programmed in C++.

[maniac]

What do you think about this guy's tutorials. Have you seen them? http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2D1942A4688E9D63

[3qX21hU5]

You don't need Qt Creator to create Qt-based GUIs. It can help boost productivity though. It's more of just a frontend for QML as far as I understand.

Correct you don't need Qt Creator to create Qt GUI's but it can help specially for beginners to GUI programming.

Also Qt Creator is much more then just a front end for QML it is actually a full blown C++ IDE with debugging, Drag and Drop editor, ect.

[maniac]

I use Windows 7 SP1 and I have installed visual studion 2012. I downloaded the Qt package for Visual Studio 2012. But when I start Qt Creator and try to run a simple program I get the message - Not debbuger set up. How can I fix this? I searched all night but I couldn't find solution. I don't know anything about Qt and if you can explain me what should I do step by step it will be awesome. By the way this is the code that I try to run:

#include <QCoreApplication>
#include<QDebug>

int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
    QCoreApplication a(argc, argv);
    qDebug() << "Hello, World!";

    return a.exec();
}

[o1vk4iN6]

Correct you don't need Qt Creator to create Qt GUI's but it can help specially for beginners to GUI programming.

It also simplifies cross compiling in a way. Probably the best feature comes with Qt5 in that you can just do something like "CONFIG += c++11". Which as far as i know other make system like CMake still lack it.