Elysian Shadows

MarauderIIC wrote:

GyroVorbis wrote:I just thought that I would mention that some of my best books are actually textbooks from my classes at the University. Keep them. ... Our textbooks are usually between 500-1000 pages and cost anywhere from $100 to $200 bucks. I have found them pretty useful to go back and learn from.

Same. I haven't sold back any of my CS books.

Haha, I'm not going to let Kendall sell hers back either.

I have a cupboard full of programming related books, i'll rank them on a scale from 1 to 10 whilst I list them

1 being ass and 10 being the lord saviour of books

sams teach yourself C++ in 24 hours (6-7'ish)
You can program in C++ (-1, very misleading)
You can do it! learn C++ (3, prequel to book above, very angry I had to buy this one, didnt get much from it )
C++: a beginners guide (10, I just love this book, so coherent and excellently written)
C++: the complete programming reference(9, as good as you might expect, although there are a few tiny things I would like to see in an 'complete reference' that werent in there)
sams teach yourself game programming in 24 hours (4, lots of prior knowledge required, despite what the book tells you, chunks of code snippets are somewhat incomplete and unclear)
teach yourself game programming (6, simple 100'ish page book, gets you started, nothing flashy, no complaints there, very cheap too )
Java: a beginners guide (10, I just love this book, so coherent and excellently written *hint, written by the same author, basically the Java equivalent of the C++ book mentioned above*)
beginners guide to DarkBASIC (4, the language itself was ass, and the book hardly teaches you how to program a game in the language, it simply tells you what things are, doesnt explain what and why you use them, and doesnt interlink them at all, but then goes and lists the source for a full game at the end, leaving you with one thing in mind "WTF?")

I have a lot of books, but only a few of them are truly excellent, and are usually the ones I get out of my book cupboard the most

I don't know if you're interested in learning Lisp or functional programming, but if you are these are good books.
Clojure is a Lisp that runs on the JVM, and Haskell is purely functional programming language.

Programming Clojure
Real World Haskell

I own:
"C++: How to Program: 3RD Edition" by Deitel and Deitel. I hate it, it's a reference book whereas the title says "How to Program." If you have the attention span to read one friggin' page of this book then I'm pretty sure you're possessed by some satanic force.
If you're willing to pay $2 for this god awful piece of crap, then by all means take those 2 dollars and shove them up your butt. The end result will be more interesting.

Pickzell wrote:"C++: How to Program: 3RD Edition" by Deitel and Deitel. I hate it, it's a reference book whereas the title says "How to Program."

My experience with the Deitel books has spanned the spectrum of "excellent" to "piss poor" and back the other direction. At university, my first operating system course was taught using (Harvey) Deitel's "Operating Systems, 2nd Edition". This was before the mass capitalism of the "How to" series. I echo your sentiment to that C++ book. My suggestion is to avoid a Deitel book with a stupid anthropomorphized ant on the cover. Now, having said that, I do have a copy of their "C++ for Programmers" from the Developer Series and I think that one is pretty decent (7 of 10). They cover a wide range of basic and advanced topics in C++. My one gripe is that some explainations or examples are not explained well enough for one to truly understand a concept. If I could only have one C++ book this might be it. I'm too far along in my C++ exposure to need a "21 days" book, but not enough to understand the "really advanced shit."

As for programming books in general... I think I have too many. I collect books like they're a dying breed and don't have the time to plow through all of them. My biggest pet peeve is that I'll flip through a book and sense that it might be worth the money, get it home and begin to read it, then realize that (under closer inspection) the author is a true douche nozzle who doesn't know shit about what he's talking about.

I'd hate to pump GyroVorbis's ego but I've learned more concepts from his videos than most of those "game programming" books. LusikkaMage's intro vids are another example of how an indie developer seems to know more than those "professional to professional" hackjobs out there wasting paper. My quick test to rule out a potential purchase - look in the table of contents for a chapter on pointers. No chapter - no purchase. If an author of a C++ instructional book leaves out pointers, he doesn't know the language and it's a disservice to one's edjukation to not get exposure to those bastardly pains in the ass.

Too many people starting out in programming see games such as WoW, LOTR, DDO, World of Goo, etc. and think, "Hey, I'm gonna do that! I'm gonna have the most kRad Hax0r video game ever! It'll be epic." As we all know, they have no idea what they're saying. They have no clue how hard this is and how much time it takes. One doesn't jump from "Hello World" to a 10,000,000 subscriber MMOG without some serious blood, sweat, and tears. And a budget. And a team. And a publisher. And a distributor.

As much as they don't want to hear it or believe it... "Do Pong first. Then Tetris. Then Donkey Kong. Then a mini-Mario." Walk, don't run. As a lone developer, I have shit to show anyone of my progress. My work on the engine is slow and methodical. I write a ton of test wrappers. I diagram my classes (using doxygen), I document my code (with comments), I make UML my bitch. Of course, I studied software engineering so that was all beat into my head... Eventually, though, I think my Pong will be epic. Then I'll work on my MMOP (massively multi-player online pong).

Oh. This was about books......

C++ for Programmers, Deitel, ISBN-13: 9780137001309
The Mythical Man-Month, Brooks, ISBN-13: 9780201835953
3D Game Engine Design, Eberly, ISBN-13: 9780122290633
Game Physics, Eberly, ISBN-13: 9781558607408
Essential Mathematics for Games and Interactive Applications, Van Verth, ISBN-13: 9780123742971

The last three are hardbound textbooks that go into the heavy shit of theory, linear algebra, and 3D concepts. Best if you've had college calculus first. "Mythical Man-Month" is about software engineering and teams and how they fail. A good read for anyone who thinks collaborative programming is simple or that project management is "da bomb".

-Capt Jack

Everything captjack just said

I think we're all going to like you on here

Pickzell wrote:I own:
"C++: How to Program: 3RD Edition" by Deitel and Deitel. I hate it, it's a reference book whereas the title says "How to Program." If you have the attention span to read one friggin' page of this book then I'm pretty sure you're possessed by some satanic force.
If you're willing to pay $2 for this god awful piece of crap, then by all means take those 2 dollars and shove them up your butt. The end result will be more interesting.

lulz, I'm reading the second edition of that right now and I love it. But I only paid 1 dollar for it so my expectations weren't as high as they would have been if it would have cost me 2 whole dollars. Then again, I like reference books.

programmerinprogress wrote:

Everything captjack just said

I think we're all going to like you on here

I hope so. I'd hate to become one of those "douche nozzles" I spoke of.

Programming can be difficult; game programming only that much more so. Indie devers have it so much harder than professional game shops. What we lack in resources that commercial companies have we make up for with the strength of the community. I've never been happier to be a part of a group than I am here (granted most of the time I've been lurking). I like seeing eveyone helping out where they can and keeping the dick measuring out of it.

-capt jack

captjack wrote: I'd hate to pump GyroVorbis's ego but I've learned more concepts from his videos than most of those "game programming" books. LusikkaMage's intro vids are another example of how an indie developer seems to know more than those "professional to professional" hackjobs out there wasting paper.

I agree. I learned more from Cprogramming.com than I did from a C++ book. Mainly because on there it's explained in a way you can understand. I'm bummed that it doesn't cover STL and inheritance very well though.
I ordered "Sams teach yourself C++ in 21 days" off of eBay yesterday, hopefully that will cover it, and I'll tell you what I think of it.

What are some good intermediate c++ books? I'm sure someone has asked this question before, but I'm too lazy to find it :random_smiley_here:

I've been needing some books about c++ but beginner books would do me little good, and I want to learn some OO theory, I know some but I would love a book about it...

So if anyone has any suggestions on books to read that are above beginner status, or about object oriented programming then I would be very greatful

Not quite a book, but when I was new to c++ I found these very interesting.

http://www.daniel-lemire.com/blog/archi ... e-courses/

I'd say 106A was introductory.
106B is probably where I would recommend you start.

I'd love to know if you do actually take some time to watch any of these, of what you thought.

My two fave book are defintly
C for Dummies -dan gookin
understanding computer science for advanced level -Ray bradley

eatcomics wrote:What are some good intermediate c++ books? I'm sure someone has asked this question before, but I'm too lazy to find it :random_smiley_here:

The nuts and bolts of the language in excruciating detail can be found in Stroustroup's "The C++ Programming Language". His homepage is located at http://www.research.att.com/~bs/ which has a ton of C++ information such as http://www.research.att.com/~bs/C++.html. That page also include the various revisions of the ISO standard for C++.

The C++ FAQ from comp.lang.c++ newsgroup is located at http://www.parashift.com/c++-faq-lite/. The C++ Resources Network is located at http://www.cplusplus.com/. C++ newsgroup FAQ (yet another source) is at http://www.faqs.org/faqs/by-newsgroup/c ... g.c++.html

The current draft of the ISO Comittee's C++ Standard, dated 6-22-2009, is available here: http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/ ... /n2914.pdf. If you want to read about classes and OOP, check out chapter 9 starting on page 205. The standard has over 1300 pages and is sufficiently technical enough to scare the living shit out of C++ beginners. Note that the standard is designed for compiler writers, not compiler users. If you're feeling exceptionally frisky, you can always delve into the Dragon Book. "Compilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools" by Aho, Sethi, and Ullman. (But you're not cool unless you have the first edition .) Brownie points if you actually understand that book.

-capt jack

Well thank you very much sir

It seems like a lot of people liked the Focus on SDL book, so is recommended?