Hi all again, this topic is aimed at tutorial writers: This question goes to all the newbie programmers out there: "What are the problems you face everyday in trying to learn Windows Programming and/or Visual C++ ?" "What was the thing you had to lear that confused you most ?" Tell us, so we may write better turorials for everybody. Happy Coding & Happy Gaming, Hugo Ferreira lotsjunk@hotmail.com http://unitek3000.tripod.com

Well, I''m not as much a newbie as I used to be (at least with the basics) but one thing that took me a while to get a good grasp on was bitwise operators. Bitmasking, bit shifting, ORING, ect. It would be good to include when to use them and what benefits you can get (for example having attribute flags with objects). Just a thought.

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Simpson quote of the month: “Your mother seems really upset. I better go have a talk with her - during the commercial.”

Thanks to http://members.optushome.com.au/jmevans/ for the quotes.

Okay, the one thing that I don''t like about alot of the tutorials that I''ve seen, is that they tell you to do something in your program but they dont tell you WHY. Telling me why I should do it would increase my understanding of C++ and help me make better programs. I don''t think that was answering any of the questions but I thought that it might be some useful information that I might put here.

Oh yeah, if anybody knows of a good turtorial for a newbie, it would be greatly appreciated if they could post it or email me at mmz71687@geek.com.

Well coding for windows is the problem. Where does one put all the code? It isn''t like DOS where you just void main(void). In windows you have Proc() and winmain() so where does one put the code to do graphics and game logic and do you have to reference it in winmain() or the Proc()? One thing that is confusing as hell is the way windows code is wrote! Why did they have to change from a normal variable type, like int and typedef it to these types that have no meaning to a newbie? Coding for windows would be easier if they would have left it at int winmain(arguments). Using handles is confusing to a newbie also. HWND hwnd or HDC hdc, I know these are structs but why the handle? A very simple tutorial on using 2D graphics in windows would be a good start! I have given up on using 2D and am going back to a console app and writing a text-based game for now. Hopefully when my OpenGL Game Programming book gets here that will help! DirectX is even more complicated to use. I have bought books on both DirectX and OpenGL and decided that OpenGL is easier to learn than DirectX. Like I said before with the typedef problem, DirectX uses this all over the place way to complicated to grasp for newbies! These are some of my thoughts on the problems for newbies. =)

Windows 98/SE/ME SUCKS!
Deal with it!
if(windows crashes)
run Linux
else
yeah right!!

RESIST WINDOWS XP!!!!!!!!!!
RESIST .NET TECH!!!!!!!!!!!

I can''t figure out how to use Visual C++ for Windows development at all. At least, not the drag-and-drop stuff; I can still type in or include source files by hand, but I have never found any useful examples of how to use the visual designer. Every book I have seen seems to assume that you already know everything about Windows architechture from top to bottom, and they seem to go to great lengths to avoid any useful and complete working code examples (for instance, sending application results to the debug window of the IDE instead of to another textbox on the application window itself).
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Like for instance:
I want a !modeless! Window with a button and two textboxes placed on it. When I type something into the first textbox and then hit the button, I want the first textbox''s contents copied into the second textbox.
!
I have not found any example comparable to this in any "programming with visual C++ 6" book that I have ever seen.
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For simple apps I can use Visual Basic, Visual J, C++Builder and JBuilder as well as a few other minor IDE''s/environments in other languages with little or no problems, as well as data access local or remote in any of several flavors, in many of those. Not knowing how to program computers is not my problem. ~ MS made Visual Basic and Visual J easy to use, and then turned around completely on Visual C++. It is a nightmare. - Lubb