Welcome to C++ Jungle

Marco Aurélio Bomfim — Wed, 17 Jun 2020 16:32:34 +0000

Being a JavaScript developer all this time, it struck me that I have a view of development and how the code works, that is not precisely the same as other languages out there.

All it takes is opening an Open Source code in Ruby on Rails, for instance, for me to start wondering how things work the way they do, since in JS everything kinda makes sense to me. This is absolutely true for me when looking at C++ code, so in my new journey of studying a new language, and doing some fun projects, I can't stop thinking about my way of viewing things, and how I can explaing to myself, how things work using JS analogies.

This led me to a different way of studying C++, so this reading may be particularly useful if you're a JS developer studying C++ for some reason (who would do that?!). I've tried looking for some books, or guidance on where to begin, and even managed to find a very concise list of books, which I'll definitely read later on, but for now, I decided to follow along C++ Reference tutorials, which should be enough for now.

This post was written at the sound of:

The basics

Alright, let's start with our favorite program of all: Hello World:

If you want to give it a whirl, open up a terminal (I'm running Ubuntu 20.04), access the folder where the file is located, and run:

# Compiles the .cpp file on the folder as 'hello_world'
make hello_world

# To run, just go with:
./hello_world

Variables

Ok, we all know how variables work, no big deal here. I just want to store the actual table of available data types we have on C++, coming straight from the documentation:

Now, here's the gist with what I've learned so about variables:

Operators

Operators is something I won't go too much in depth, as they are pretty much the same among languages, BUT, there are some topics that I think is important that I cover and talk about:

If for whatever reason you're following this posts, and run the gist above, I've left some variables unused on purpose, and it is very likely that whatever IDE you're using will scream at you a warning like so:

If this happens, feel free to ignore it, or simply print the values of those variables, and the warning should go away.

IO Operations

Here we have a couple of examples of how to deal with input from the user, as well as a very nice function called stringstream:

Wrapping up

This should cover enough ground for me to start building some simple stuff. It was a fun ride so far, but there is still a LOT of ground to cover, but thanks if you've read so far. Hope to see you soon!

Figuring out what to do next...

Marco Aurélio Bomfim — Wed, 17 Jun 2020 14:54:22 +0000

Lengthy Introduction

Hi, how are you? My name is Marco, I'm a professional Software Engineer (fancy term for developer, although in my opinion broader than front-end, back-end, and company), and I'll start using this place here to share some thoughts on my career, and development in general.

I want to make this an entertaining "blog" (until I build, and maintain a site of my own), and I want to start writing about some new things on the horizon, as well as spitting out any dissatisfaction I have along the way.

This post was written by the sound of:

I want to start fresh, so I'll start by picking up a new language, and a new project. But how do I do this? How can one start something new? We are so used to doing things over and over again, but never stop to wonder how to start a new path, or walk a new road. Specially now with quarantine upon us, we are getting used to be on our "bubble", introspective, and in a comfort zone, which sometimes can be nice, but right now, I'm willing to break.

There are a couple of things that helps me to figure out what to do next, and I'll go through each of them:

What do I like to do, or at lest, think I like to do?
What is required of me to get there?
Where do I start?
How can I keep up with my progress?

We are not making any big decisions for any multi-billionaire company. Not even close, this is plain and simple a personal decision of what do study and diverge my attention with for a couple of months or years, so I'll not take too much time with decision making processes for now, although later on, as the projects grow bigger, I may think about studying some of it.

What have I decided?

I've always been in love with math, and specially, simulations. For the past couple of years I've watched baffled videos from people like those folks below:

From the list above, Sebastian Lague was the most influential for this project I've decided to work on. This guy makes the though process of simulations so delightful to watch, that it sparked my desire to build my knowledge to a point where I can think of a scenario, and then make it live inside a computer.

Also, you may have realized that there is a broad spectrum of topics in those channels, and those are not all of the ones I'm very interested in, but we need a language that may fit in those interests. I wanted something challenging, but that allow me to build projects based on all of the above.

I've then decided to go with C++, as this is a language based in C, which gives us the flexibility to work on low-level implementations from circuit-boards, all the way up to some high-level usage in Unity Engine, and being such a flexible language, it may be possible to work my way into other subjects such as music, or art, or whatever...

In the next chapter of this little adventure, I'll start working in a project, to build up my C++ skills. See you there.

DEV Community: Marco Aurélio Bomfim