Elysian Shadows

Hello,

I'm a beginner programmer learning C++, I bought a book a few months ago but haven't really made much progress, the problem is; I really, really want to. The book I'm learning from; "C++ Without Fear" is a pretty good book, it takes a while to explain some of the things but that's probably a good thing. The only problem with the book is that it really does tell you how it is. It show's me perfectly how to do something, but not what to do with it. I've learnt a fair bit, by my standards, but I don't know what to do with this knowledge. It's great knowing how to use the programming, and doing some of the activities from the book, but that's all I can do. I don't know if I should learn more first or if my imagination just isn't wide enough, but I can't come up with anything to program. The most complicated application I've written so far is a console app. that takes a number input and checks to see whether the number is prime.

What I'm asking is basically some good project idea's for a beginner that will give me some motivation to keep learning and even enjoy doing so. Thanks.

Mad libs :D
(too easy)

How far into C++ have you gotten? Have you learned about classes yet? (functions? pointers?)
If you've messed with classes, you might think of doing a basic text adventure.

By that I mainly mean starting off with navigating around some maps, where you'd have an "Area" class (I'm not sure what a good name for it would be) that holds stuff like the description and the- say- index of the map to the North, South, East, and West.
So basically start off with an array of areas that you can move between, and figure out how all that works.

I'm up to creating my own functions. Not sure how much I can do with that.

I'd definitely suggest learning about classes. They're not that difficult (at least, not in my opinion?), and they're extremely useful.

I'm in the same dilemma as you,Rhys. I don't know how to put the knowledge that I have absorbed to use. I want to be able to SEE the progress I have made. :/
Suggestion on simple projects would be appreciated

Write something to solve polynomials using the quadratic equation?

Beware of floating point subtraction (and division)!

MarauderIIC wrote:Beware of floating point subtraction (and division)!

Aye! So also have it choose between

[-b +/- sqrt( b^2 - 4ac )] / 2a

and

2c / [-b -/+ sqrt( b^2 - 4ac ) ]

For maximum accuracy...

Though you (OP) probably have no idea what I'm talking about.

Moosader wrote:I'd definitely suggest learning about classes. They're not that difficult (at least, not in my opinion?), and they're extremely useful.

I don't know they were hard for me to understand at first. I caught by really thinking hard about them and really analyzing every line of code in the examples I found. Then again, they were never explained to me, I was left with an incomplete example and shitload of free time.

If the direct learning approach isn't working very well, find an open-source game or project and screw with it.

I was thinking of making a program that would solve quadratic equations. I made a program that would take the two co-ordinates you entered and give you the slope, Point Slope equation, Standard Form equation, and General Form. It was fun to do. Now that you suggest quadratics, I'm thinking about extending it.

I think that making a program that takes a linear system of n equations and determines n variables is sooo much more impressive. (Use reduced row echelon form)

What you just said went WAYYYYYYY over my head, Gyro. I have only been learning to program for a little over a month. I am a total noob and not afraid to admit it

I just tried to take my program to quadratics but it was too complicated. I hadn't realized that I was programming in C and I have switched over to C++ since then. First, I had to translate Everything to C++. Then I tried to expand it, but I received a lot of errors (120 of them). I am frustrated because it worked perfectly in C. I'll submit it if I can get it to calculate quadratics Until then, don't count on me being able to do it

Solving linear graphs would be a nice one to program, it would help me with about a month of homework, heh.