Where to go from here

[takeabyte]

Hello Everyone,
I am having some trouble and to be honest I don’t know where to begin explaining. I have been working in IT for a number of years and I have always wanted to be better with C++ for a number of reasons that you all can understand. However, I buy this book and that book, read this article and that article and I just come back to the same situation. I am learning and relearning the same thing over and over again and I don’t feel like I am making any headway (I know I’m not). Basically, I will make it through whatever I am reading and I will get to arrays, pointers, and such then I don’t know where to go from there. Now, I have worked with some OOP stuff off and on but even then I will come across example snippets and stare blankly at the screen trying to make heads or tails of it all. In college, my degree took me in a completely different direction after intro to C++ which ended with OOP and I started to take the second part and I was completely lost. When I asked the professor and TAs for help they all looked at me like I was crazy (or they couldn’t grasp what I was trying to say). The truth is I don’t know if I am overcomplicating things or if I have just missed some bridging concept entirely. This is probably not the best example but when I tried to go from console to GUI applications the differences are staggering (as you all know). Looking at the code examples, I would obviously recognize some of it and other things the authors acted like I should understand I didn’t. I don’t know if this post is making any sense I am just hoping there is someone out there who had the same issues starting out that I am having and figured out a resolution. I appreciate any help anyone can give. Thanks.

[gnewfenix]

Yeah, it sounds like your over-complicating things. Even though programming often gives off the complicated vibe, the KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) principle is actually the best advice I ever got. And for learning, try not to over do it. Go through the tutorials on here one by one (and spend a lot of time on something if it doesn't make sense at first. Don't expect to pick up OOP in one hour. If you need a week thats def fine) and when you run into a problem, just ask on here. GUI programming can actually be intimidating depending on what your learning. http://www.gtkmm.org/ is c++ bindings for gtk+, and the good type of bindings! Not like, MFC XD. Also, your problem might be the books your reading, lol. I've read quiet a few books on c++ and they all aren't equal. For example, I have a book by Frank M. Carrano that teaches a lot of OOP and design practices but he unfortunately writes with this ego that assumes the reader is already rather knowledgeable about what he's explaining. A lot of authors tend to do that, making their books more like refreshment courses. Maybe this could be one of your problems? My overall advice is like I said, use the tutorials on here and if your stuck, come here and ask. Don't try to rush your learning too, everybody has a different learning pace. If youthink our spending too much time on OOP, you're probably not. I've seen giant 400+ page books on it in Borders. When your ready to learn some GUI programming come on here and find what toolkit sounds fit for you to learn. I already mentioned gtkmm, which is c++ bindings to the gtk+ toolkit. Maybe you want some more native Windows stuff? Who knows! Anyway, hope that answered at least a part of your question. lol