Why(or How) did you start with C++?

[dams]

I started with .bat files, but they had limited functionality, so I started learning C after my school exams as a hobby(Dietel & Dietel, How to Program-my father had bought the book when was 7 yrs. and I left it that time as I could not understand anything). Completed the whole book, only to learn that there is a better programming language.
Next year, started with C++ (Thinking in C++) and soon got addicted to it.
In the beginning the book was a little boring (C) but Inheritance and Polymorphism were really fun.
Vol. 2 was much better, Exceptions and other stuff.

It's much more easier and FASTER to program using C++ but you end up adding so many features to the program that my code size went up from 70 K.B(in my first C program) to 1.1 M.B.(in my first C++ program-using classes).

So, How did you start? Job, Hobby.....

[sohguanh]

I started with C during my University days. Year 1 we were actually taught Pascal to implement those computer science concepts but in Year 2 we get exposed to C and grossly under-estimate the pointers hell C brought to us since we are not taught in Year 1. Around the same time, Java was taught by other lecturers and somehow a lot of students cross over to Java.

For me I like both and later even take on enrichment module that allow me to dabble in some x86 assembly language. Was it Arrow assembler I have forgotten.

So all in all, I pretty much focus on programming language, algorithm, data structures in my computer science studies. I didn't do very good in others like System Analysis and Design, those SDLC cycle etc stuff. Guess everyone have their likes and dislikes :)

[Athar]

Ever since my father brought home a printer one day, including a "controller machine" (an IBM PS/2) and I heard you could "program" the thing somehow, I was interested.
So my parents bought me a book about programming for my 10th birthday. Things took their course and I started with C++ one year later. And true enough, it's been very fascinating so far (even though it turned out that programming doesn't involve screwdrivers and big control levers).

[LB]

The software I use to make games and applications has its limits, so there is an SDK in C++ to add on to its capabilities. I learned C++ so I could make these "Extensions" for when I needed more features than what were provided.

[Pufo]

I've learned C++ while i was in prison.

[lnk2019]

My first run-in with programming was when I was very young (possibly 6 or 7) when I went to visit a friend of my fathers. I was playing video games fathers, friends son, when he introduced to me an entirely revolutionary concept, people make games as opposed to them magically materializing on the shelves of video rental shops (my mind = blown).

I first learned programming with QBasic at the tender age of 14. I remember the first time I wrote text to a file and thinking to myself, "I'm so pro now!". Moved onto Pascal in College writing ridiculous application to manage the buying and selling of tyres. Finally moving up to C++ when I hit University.

[GbX36Up4]

As a hobby, a few months ago I learned Ruby, because I wanted to program games, and eventually got bored with the tiny programs that I started on but never finsihed as I was too lazy to do the butt-load of if statements for tiny things such as moving the "character" across the screen (it was ascii art grapchics) and started looking up languages. I attempted to learn Java (It was the time Minecratf became a huge hit, so I assumed that Java could make grapchics easier than other languages) but couldn't get the compiler to work right so ended up quiting. After looking up more languages I learned that C++ is very similiar to Java so I ended up learning C++ instead of Java. Maybe if I got Java to work right I wold be at some Java forum instead of here? XD

[S6k9GNh0]

I needed something low level and something with potential so I could possibly turn a hobby into something useful...

[3hM2Nwbp]

I learned C++ because I had to write a real-time networking application that should run 24/7/365. Java (which I had been using before this) simply couldn't cut it.^[1]

_{[1] unless I were to purchase a commercial VM}

[1yR4jE8b]

I learned Visual Basic in high school and used that to make a game for my final project, it blew my teacher away. I then applied to University, and got a degree in Computer Science.

I read online that C/C++ was the language of choice for game dev and the software industry in general, so I was really looking forward to learning it in University. To my dismay, we used Java throughout the entire degree, but I taught myself C++ in second year, and wrote my thesis with it.

[ModShop]

It all started with an Xbox, actually, the lack of it...

I was 14 and grounded from playing video games. With nothing to do, I Googled for a program to "make" games (not play them, hehe, I was so clever). Nearly every result featured some statement along the lines of "make great games without writing a single line of code". I decided that code would be too bad, and I had previously heard of C++ (but, being into hardware at the time, I didn't take interest), so I searched for a tutorial. I found the one on this site and it went from there.

[zwA4jE8b]

started visual basic 2 semesters ago at school (had to take it as an elective). Really liked it and did well. Changed my major to computer science last semester, which started me in C++.

[PanGalactic]

I upgraded from Turbo C to Turbo C++ back in the early 90s and started first playing around with the language then. Many of the features were interesting, though a bit too many were only half-baked at the time for my taste. I did most of my programming in C, but would use C++ for toy projects here and there.

I moved from DOS/Windows in '95 to Linux. I got sidetracked into Python in '97 and for a while did mostly Python, with some C and C++. I credit Python with teaching me proper OO programming concepts.

It wasn't until GCC 3.3 came out in '04 that the language really felt ready for prime time. I've been doing a mostly C++ since then. The GCC 4.x series has been great, with TR1 support, faster compilation, better optimization, and sweet, sweet C++0x support as of late.

[m4ster r0shi]

A friend of mine introduced me to Visual Basic when I was in junior high school.
It was cool, playing around with forms and buttons and stuff. But I wanted more.
I knew that if you wanted real power over the machine, VB just couldn't cut it.

My goal at that time was to manage to compress a ~100MB
porn video into a floppy disk. That's why I started learning C++.

[tition]

Ahaha better use your visual memory... it's the easiest compression method for that kind of videos :)

[MottMan]

When I was in elementary I used to always love playing the logic games on the math programs we used. I also loved (and still love) playing and talking about video games. Eventually (when I was 12 or so) I learned about GameMaker. I fiddled with it for a couple of months and then lost interest.

A little while after I start to study what programming really is (knowing not much about it) and found out that Ruby was a good start. So, I downloaded what I needed and start learning Ruby. After I got bored with it I stopped programming for a while.

Eventually I got over the scare that all programmers give you about C++ and decided to learn it. I made the right choice.

[zb0S216C]

In a nutshell, I fell for the logical element involved with programming. I started with C++; I found it a little too difficult due to some of the concepts such as inheritance. So I went backwards and started with C. C was less overwhelming, easier to understand, and was still in the C language family. After a while, when I was comfortable with C, I crossed over to C++.

_Wazzak

[AngelHoof]

I started with C++ because I thought making games was easy. But game programming is a bitch, and as we all know, bitches be crazy.

[STLreliant]

Fed up of a mate showing off because he could write in Visual Basic so I took up VB but very quickly realised it was not my type of language so tried C++ and now, other than an occasional dabble with C, write constantly with C++.

[Ikaron]

I decided to take up C++ as my very first programming language, having considered C and Java as well. I had been told that both Java and C were good languages to start with if I wanted to get into C++, but there was just something about C++ that attracted me. I can't quite say what it was. I know that, for one, I didn't want to spend time learning one languge just to spend some more time re-learning for C++. It seemed silly to learn one language for the sole purpose of getting into another language, and I had no desire to simply stick with C or Java. C++ was my ultimate goal, so I just went straight into it.

Another thing about C++ that attracted me to it was in fact many of the people who said it has a steep learning curve. At the time I felt that learning and understanding C++ first would allow me to have an easier time understanding other languages than if I had learned a more 'beginner friendly' language such as Python first and then tried to get into C++ afterwards.

I can't really say if this has been true or not, I definitely have a much more natural understanding of other languages than I used to, but I couldn't say how much this is influenced by learning C++ first, simply because I can't take another path starting over from scratch.

Ultimately, I chose C++ first because from what I read, C++ was among more difficult languages to learn, and I wanted to tackle the steep learning curve first. Sort of like getting the difficult stuff over with, so you have an easier time down the road. The next language I plan on studying up on is Assembly, so I can use it within my C++ code.