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Has Anyone written a C++ Program?

17 years ago

I use to program in the olden days (RPG and COBOL) and now work in the medical field. I need to display the contents of a database on a computer screen, which I can do in EXCEL but I find I hate EXCEL - it's clumsy and very user unfriendly and I know I can do better than EXCEL.

I am going to learn C++ and am wondering if anyone out here has taught themselves - any advice?

Pat

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Comments (5)

Pooh Bear
17 years ago
I use Liberty Basic. It will make Windows programs.
It is very easy to use and well supported.

Pooh Bear

Here is a link that might be useful: Liberty Basic
bpgreen
17 years ago
I had been programming in C for several years before I learned C++. I'm not sure whether the C was a help or a hindrance in learning C++.

I had also taken a class that I think was called Data Structures and the professor required us to use object oriented programming for all of our assignments. He didn't care what language we used as long as we hadn't programmed in it before and as long as it was OO.

Many of the C programmers in both of those classes had a lot of trouble grasping the OO concepts. In my opinion, your first goal should be to learn OO without worrying about a specific language, then apply it to C++ or java. Java is pretty similar to C++ but it enforces more of the OO and doesn't allow you to do unsafe things (like write to invalid memory locations).

C is a function based language, and you can actually write a C++ program without using an OO features, but that kind of defeats the purpose.

What compiler are you planning to use? There are a lot of good free compilers these days.

What other languages did you consider and why did you decide on C++? The reason I'm asking is that I think there may be other languages that would be easier to use and there are some that probably have wizards to help you get up and running quickly.
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bostonpat_gw
Original Author
17 years ago
I downloaded Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 Express (free) last night - I haven't had a chance to check it out yet.
I chose C++ merely by GOOGLING programming languages - I looked at some tutorials and understood the logic of the "baby steps" shown. I'm not married to any one language - I merely want the capabilities to display and list fields - and possibly eventually enter data into a database - pretty simple stuff. I imagine I will want to do more as I learn but for right now I will be thrilled to display user selected records.
Pat
paulm1953
17 years ago
If you have no particular attachment to C++, then Visual Basic Express might be a little easier.

There are all sorts of data controls that will allow you to display and update database info on your screen.

If we're talking about Access databases, even ODBC-connected databases like Oracle or SQL, then there is a programming environment in Access that will let you do what you want.

Any of these object-oriented languages will be a pretty big step if your only background is COBOL/RPG.

Good luck.
Pooh Bear
17 years ago
Liberty Basic will do ODBC.

To see what all LB will do check out the News Letters.
Or even better check out the News Letter Contents page.

If you can program in BASIC you can use LB.
But I haven't found anything yet that LB can't do that
the other programming languages (VB, C, C++, etc) can.

Pooh Bear

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