My Experience Learning C++ (so far)

#cpp #programming #beginners #career

`std::cout << "Hello, World!";`

For those of you who don't know me (i assume all of you don't. Just assuming), my name is Caleb, and I'm a 16-year-old high school student who is persuing a tech career in the future.

I've developed in a lot of different languages in the past, including:

Scratch (my first 😉)
Python 🐍
Bash (doesn't count, but kinda got me into programming)
Javascript, and
Rust.

All five of these languages hold a special place in my heart, but I decided that I need to learn a language that can get me a job in the future, so I did some research, and found these:

Java
C#
C++

Now, don't roast me for this, but I absolutely HATE Java. It seems so complex to write just a simple program, and I tend to agree with the memes that the only applicable use case is Minecraft.

;

Also, C# seems to be decent, but complex as well. It seems to me that the best language out of these three is C++, as it's used in countless places including gaming, servers, IOT, and more. So, I had a clear choice.

It Begins.

The first thing I ever did in C++ was try to create a project without guides. (our power was out, so I couldn't use the internet.) So, what did i do?

I excitedly pulled up my terminal, ran

~$ c++ init

and was bamboozled that for some reason in this world, it didn't work.

After our power came back on, I decided to actually google what the package manager was for c++, and how to initialize a project for it.

I searched and searched for FOUR WHOLE HOURS for a package manager, and never found one that was official.

Eventually, I understood that you needed to make the files and folders yourself, and facepalmed myself about 10 times, giving myself both a nosebleed and an excuse to go to the bathroom.

My first thoughts

There were a few things that i noticed at first:

1. The type goes BEFORE the variable.

So, I desperately searched for a way to make stuff simpler, and found this, which made me finally feel at-home with variable definition:

auto myvariable = type();

Finally, closure.

This got me quickstarted, making a few small projects like a number-guessing game and a smol calculator.

2. Project Structure

Many people tend to space their functions out into different files, and then compile them altogether. I mean, this is alright, but I prefer to keep my main functions inside main.cpp and then just compile everything together.