Slashdot Mirror
Best Websites for Developers?
Recently, I've been entertaining the idea of getting into a little Java programming for a side project I'm working on, and I realized that I really don't know where to start. This led to a larger question of what the best books and websites are for pepole new to a language. What about for the experts in a language? So this week, I was wondering what slashdotters thought are the best websites to go to for information on the major languages (like C, C++, PHP, Perl, etc) and the important topics in programming (x, gtk, win32, etc). I obviously have some opinions on some of the better places to visit, but I wanted to see what slashdotters thought. (hence the paucity of links in this story) Where do people find the authorities? My intention is to ask about web sites this weekend, and books next weekend.
I see that Word-a-day calendar is really coming in handy for you, huh?
For PHP stuff checkout PHPBuilder. developer.com sometimes has good stuff too for all languages and technologies.
acutally its http://www.w3schools.com but sorry.../me forgot
Programmer's Heaven has tons of information on Assembler, Basic, C / C++, C#, Delphi & Kylix, Java, Java Script, Pascal, ,Perl, PHP, Python, VB, and VB.NET.
Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes. --E. W. Dijkstra
While not the most comprehensive site I've ever seen, devx.com has great discussion groups on just about every language I've ever used, and then some. I've never failed to get an answer to a question or a suggestion on a new algorithm from any of the groups I've posted to there. I'm sure there are better language-specific sites out there, but I've never seen a better site that covers so many languages.
Perl - $Just @when->$you ${thought} s/yn/tax/ &couldn\'t %get $worse;
www.w3schools.com
very cool
Looking for Book Reviews? Check out Literary Escapism.
i used to go to phpbuilder.com many times a day and answer all the questions in forums...
after they sold the site, i don't visit as much, but it is still the best place for a newbie PHP developer to go and get some good help.
MARIJUANA, SHROOMS, X: ONLINE?! - E
For Java news, I turn to http://www.cafeaulait.org/ and for XML news, I go to http://www.cafeconleche.org/. Eliotte Rusty Harold does a really good job on these sites. They tend to be no BS, and keep you updated on what's goin' on in both the open source and payware worlds (with definite props to open source). Highly recommended.
just my blog and pix
I owe my job to the wonderful
online documentation at php.net
php documentation
I have bought a few PHP books,
and nothing compares to having
a bookmark to the online documentation.
I have noticed, that books tend
to write examples in an OO style,
and that is not something that
comes across from reading the
code snippets in the comments
in the online documentation.
If you are new to the language make sure you visit the tutorials page and the api javadoc documentation.
All your favorite sites in one place!
Java, Cocoa, Objective C, Free BSD (Darwin) ......
http://developer.apple.com
Not only does it provide reference guides, but tutorials, examples etc. The quality of the information is as good or better than professional publishing houses. And the developer took kit (i.e., IDE) is free.
You do need to sign up for most of the features, just like it is for New York Times (blah blah blah)...
better yet... use google to search the damned thing instead of their search
google for site:msdn.microsoft.com
Well.. Did you!?
Unable to read configuration file '/bigassraid/htdig//conf/14229.conf'
Geocrawler error message.
Developer Shed (all about using open source technologies):
http://www.devshed.com
Webmonkey:
http://www.webmonkey.com
Both are VERY good.
"... the advance of civilization is nothing but an exercise in the limiting of privacy" - Janov Pelorat
oh... also for Windows events
EventID.net
The following sites I use daily (I'm a prof. programmer, currently in Java):
http://java.sun.com
- tutorials, reference API's and language spec.
http://www.theserverside.com
- information about server-side programming,
news, general interest
http://otn.oracle.com
- SQL & PL/SQL reference, free account
http://jakarta.apache.org
- tools, toolkits & infrastructure
http://www.w3.org
- RFC's (like HTTP), HTML specs, CSS, etc.
http://www.slashdot.org
- when running tests or building (goofing off)
For PHP-related information, php.net is easily the most comprehensive language resource I've ever seen. Frankly, if every language out there had such an easy to use/easily available language reference, we'd see as many real programmers coming up out of the woodwork as we have seen php programmers (not discounting the skill of PHP programmers, just that it is, predomanately, a "web-only" language.
-9mm-
most respectable languages have good online documentation (java, perl, php, python, ruby) -- manuals are great for "small" questions like getting the equivalent of switch/case to work. however, if you really want to master the language -- read a book.
This was me about five months ago, when I wanted to learn Java myself. I went to the bookstore, and bought a fat java book; then I read it.
/usr/share/doc.
Later, I ended up browsing the Java API documentation on java.sun.com, then I found out that the entire documentation kit can be downloaded; which I did and I now have the entire Java API in
I'm quite happy with the results. When I have some free time, I spend it playing with the java app that I wrote, which I use to keep track of my checkbook (no need for quicken); Swing, JDBC (Postgres), RMI, and the new SSL/TLS classes in Java 1.4. All of the documentation one can possibly need can be grabbed from java.sun.com.
For technical questions about C++, you really can't beat comp.lang.c++.moderated. I browse it a lot, but rarely post. Despite studying the langauge for 3 years, my knowledge of the langauge is like nothing compared to the better posters there.
Google Groups for the comp.lang.c++.moderated
A lot of very knowlegible people post there, people who have sold quite a few books about C++ and members of the C++ standardization committee.
Another good site for advanced C++ stuff is the C/C++ Users Journal, a lot of the aforementioned C++ authors post articles, often that are chapters from books.
I like the Shareware Courseware site. There are self-study courses for servlets, JSPs and EJBs.
HTML Help
.asp sites out there, but my guess is that's not what slashdotters are looking for....
WASP would be a good place for all newbs to start.
WASP
Find Tutorials is a good general tutorial finder.
PHP
First LAMP tutorial
PHP.net
PHP Help
There are tons of good
But for arcane Win32 API calls you can't beat Google Groups. The Microsoft MVPs hang out in the developer groups and give useful information from time to time. (And wrong information sometimes too.)
The only downside to Usenet is when you find the only post with the same problem as you is from 1996 and received 0 replies.
Random is the New Order.
Hold your breath and try MSDN. It's got everything about everything for MSIE, from HTML to scripting, from tutorials to reference. I'm not a big fan of Microsoft, but MSDN is truly useful. It's also a good reference for CSS2 properties, since these are thankfully the same (and reasonably well supported) on both MSIE and Mozilla.
To ensure cross-browser DHTML compatibility however, cross-reference with the Gecko DOM reference from the Mozilla project. It's DHTML for Mozilla; the model is completely different sadly but it works, and it's possible to write code that works for both MSIE and Mozilla/Gecko simultaneously with a little thought -- I learned most of what I know from Dan Steinman's excellent dynamic duo site.
If you're also using PHP, then you'll probably end up using MySQL as well. I learned most of the SQL I know simply by reading the MySQL manual. It's just as useful as the PHP Manual.
I'll second the vote for DevShed. It is a friendly place with a lot of good information in byte-sized chunks about all of your favorite scripting languages and a lot of other good stuff.
It wouldn't be at the top of my list for compiled languages or Java. But for web development it is an excellent choice.
As of about 5 minutes ago, this thread! :-)
Books and documentation sites are great for reference, but I like to see code, expand upon and snip it. Planet Source Code has a bunch nicely organized with user ratings.
http://www.ibm.com/developer
Let me plug my favorite developer site: Perlmonks: the online community of Perl developers. Don't come expecting your hand to be held, but a little effort will be repaid several times over. Very many nice, knowledgeable people.
This isn't as much "normalization" as it is "don't take so many drugs when you're designing tables."
Though it's not (yet =) one of the "major" languages, but it's pretty awesome. Here are some things I've learned and resources I've discovered.
What is OCaml? In a sentence, "fast modern type-inferring functional programming language." But not only does it support the functional programming paradigm, but also imperative and object-oriented models. (These can be mixed in a single program.) OCaml is type-safe and garbage collected. (But even though it's garbage collected, it runs at speeds comparable to C and C++.)
Why use OCaml? Here are some good reasons:
What kind of things have been implemented in OCaml? Check out the Caml Hump.
OCaml was developed in France, so the "bible" of the language (O'Reilly's Développement d'applications avec Objective Caml - the camel book) is written in French, but a translation of the work by volunteers has been created. Check out Developing Applications with Objective Caml.
The language's official page at INRIA in France.
Another good OCaml page
Yay OCaml!
The Online Slang Dictionary
Now that ObjC is making a minor comeback with OSX, here's a site that might be pertinent to some people:
http://www.cetus-links.org/oo_objective_c.html
And even if you don't know ObjC, it's always a good time to start. Object Oriented! C! Not C++! 3 big wins!
I go to the Web Developer's Virtual Library frequently and read up on any given topic. There is an enormous amount of free tutorials and articles here, all very enjoyable, informative and--this one's a rarity in the world of programming articles--grammatically correct.
--Rick "If it isn't broken, take it apart and find out why."
If you use Windows (I know, I know - "boo hiss!") and do web development check out HTML-Kit it's a fantastic editor. It as all sorts of plugins for javascript, perl, php etc and can use the online annotated PHP manual for context sensitive help (and probably others too). And it's Free as in Beer!
http://www.jalfrezi.com
Whenever I need to lookup a quick command spec, he's got it there for me.
As for Javascript:
http://developer.irt.org/script/script.htm
Always has answers to many different aspects of JS.
"TK-421, why aren't you at your post?"
No, I'm not an O'Reilly employee, I'm just a big fan . O'Reilly has the best technical manuals I have ever seen from one place. But Safari is even better, it's a collection of 100's of good O'Reilly books, put into online format.
Of course something like this isn't free, but its not expensive either. About 10 bucks a month gets you the ability to "subscribe" to about 5 books for 30 days and read them online, or print them! (yes, the terms allow for printing). At the end of the 30 days you can trade in your books and subscribe to new ones. There are other levels of subscription also. It's been one of the best programming resources I've used in a long time. Not just articles and tutorials like you normally find, but real, published, books online, chapters of information. You can even bookmark pages, and add notes to them.
..There's a-dooin's a-transpirin'
Since for me, anyways, Perl's usefulness is at least 50% about the HUGE body of modules already out there, I'd say the single most valuable Perl resource is CPAN. In fact, there are so many modules there and the numbers are increasing so rapidly that there are almost TOO many modules, creating an embarassment of riches...it's getting difficult to find just what you need because there is often more than a few modules out there to do it.
People
Richard Stallman -
Eric S. Raymond -
Larry Wall
Linux Programming
Linux Programming Resources -Kernel Traffic
Unix
Unix Review -Sys Admin -
Art of Unix Programming
Programming Methodologies
Extreme ProgrammingC Programming
Programming in C -Standard C -
C Library Reference -
GNU C Library
C++ Programming
David Beech's Introduction to C++ -C++ for C Programmers
Perl Programming
Perl Doc -Perl Monks -
Perl.com -
VMS Perl -
Use Perl
Network Programming
Beej's Guide to Network ProgrammingOpen Source
Open Projects -Sourceforge -
Slashcode -
The Cathedral and the Bazaar
Except for java, which lives nicely at java.sun.com. And sometimes I poke around perl.com but usually the included docs (perldoc, man perl*) are enough.
.tar.gz of the API docs and the language spec and I'm pretty self contained there too.
Otherwise, during the bulk of my time where I'm C and Objective/C++ programming, all I need is K&R (rarely anymore) and Bjarne Stroustrup's C++. That and the API documentation that came with the OS.
And really, for Java I download the
Start Running Better Polls
My vote to CodingStyle
There's a really good site out there called slashdot. You should post a question to their ask.slashdot section, and you're certain to get some really knowledgable replies.
The previous has been a secret message to my comrades.
- Go to book store.
- Find computer section.
- Find white book with nice sketch of animal (ignoring the weird photo ones) on the cover.
- Find one that matches whatever you want to learn.
- Buy it.
If you want, you can buy other books by O'Reilly on other subjects you're curious about. They always seem to end up being worth the money.As for PHP, the best resource for that is the plain and simple php.net. Not only is the entire language documented, every function definition contains examples and discussion on it. What more could you ask for?
for a neato (actually, the best I've found) gaming resource check out Flipcode. Has excellent articles on many other relevant subjects.. check it out. C, C++, etc is well represented and theory too. Dig it.
Bruce Eckel's Thinking in Java, now in it's third edition, is in my opinion the best book for learning Java. Thorough, thoughtful and thought-provoking: Available online free at www.bruceeckel.com.
Two sites I refer to frequently for C++:
SGI's reference to the STL.
cpluslus.com, most notably the "standard libraries" reference link on the left there (for looking up bits and pieces of the iostreams library).
-Rob
Check out the robocode website: "Build a robotic tank applet in Java and send it into battle!" Haven't done much of it myself but it was an interesting way to get started with Java.
I'm amazed that there is nothing here about Tcl. I use everything from shell to C to Perl, but Tcl is consistenly one of my favorite languages. I don't know why it doesn't get more respect.
Anyway, Activestate is a great place to start, especially the cookbook. The weekly Tcl-URL is published at Dr Dobbs. The Tcl Developer Xchange also has a lot of resources. Most of the major Tcl developers hang out in comp.lang.tcl (probably one of the most civil newsgroups there is). Quick answers to questions are always available there.
Not the best site to find a lot of information, but the FAQ on Bjarne Stroustrup's homepage has a lot of good answers to some more arcane C++ questions.
For a more comprehensive resource, also in FAQ format, check out the C++ FAQ-lite by Marshall Cline.
There is no shortage of materials, free and commercial, that you could use to bring yourself up to speed. What are you really looking for here? A job offer?!
If you really want to be a developer, then learn how to learn how, dig in, and get busy. Those of us who are serious know this for what it is: a plea for attention.
If there were no good materials from which to learn, I would be more sympathetic. As it is, you're just wasting time.
Please mod this post only if you think others should/n't read this. I have enough ego^H^H^Hkarma. Thanks!
I have found it incredibly useful, and searching for functions a breeze. If you need to find out a function to perform a particular task, then do a quick google search or go onto irc.openprojects.net or some other server and join a channel and ask for a function - then look that function up on php.net.
If you don't know programming, then a resource I have found useful for web based programming (mysql & php specifically) is www.devshed.com, with tutorials on a few different topics.
For game related programming and a number of topics related to that (opengl, directx, ai, etc) then www.gamedev.net is excellent. For opengl you can't go past NeHe Productions.
You can't beat the perl manpages. They are organized like a book, and are easily the best introduction to programming in perl I have seen anywhere.
They may also be in perldoc format, but I haven't bothered checking. . .
Since one of the major things in C++ is it's libraries, I find the two best references for that are:
1. SGI's STL Reference
2. Reference for iostreams and standard C library
And don't forget man pages in unices and msdn in windows.
If you're going for windows programming at all, of course you need a few sites:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/.
http://www.codeproject.com/
http://www.codeguru.com/
I recently discovered another site which has saved me alot of trouble, though I doubt a linuxweenie would ever need it: WinForms FAQ
[o]_O
http://geocities.com/tablizer/oopbad.htm
(Back, evil moderator, back! Sit!)
Table-ized A.I.
Not exactly a "developer" site but I use http://www.hotscripts.com all of the time.
Take a look at someones else's code relating to what you are working on, improve it, change it, fiddle with it, you'll end up learning faster (at least I did) by looking at someones elses code to get ideas.
I've been reading Bruce Eckel's
u re s/
"Thinking in C++" (available online)
Can't recommend it highly enough (if you need to code C++).
For Scheme (and Computer Science in general), the book Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs is hard to beat, and available online at MIT Press homepage, as is the book "How to Design Programs" (www.htdp.org). I also enjoyed reading Gary Knott's "Interpreting LISP" which can be downloaded off the web. For a nice intro to designing programming languages, check out the lecture notes available at:
http://www.cs.brown.edu/courses/cs173/2001/Lect
They've got full linux support, community edition of Forte (IDE for Java), and the latest JDKs.
Huge amount of tutorials, tips, tricks, etc.
It's flat out the best programming site on the web.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
It's a great place to post/respond to windows programming questions. It uses a point-based system, so everyone's encouraged to help each other out. I once was stuck in a rut with a complex problem and received a well-detailed response in a matter of minutes! High on my list.
-jc
This place is a very good reference for practically any web language you want to work in.
ADO, ASP, CSS2, HTML, JavaScript, Jet SQL, VBScript, WML, WMLScript, WSH, XHTML, XML DOM, XSLT are all covered.
Surf over to lernasp.com and check out "Classic ASP" if you're a vb programmer who hasn't bit into
[/flame suit]
PHP: PHP.net
Comments: If you've got a programming background, this website is all you need. If you don't have a programming background, an introductory book and this website is all you need.
HTML, Javascript, DHTML, XML, DTD, etc.: W3Schools.com
Comments: Good introductions to a ton of topics on the left-hand side.
SQL: SQLCourse.com
Comments: The first place I ever pointed my students to for SQL and probably the perfect quick source for anything up until the level of stored procedures, transactions, etc., which vary depending on the DB implementation anyway.
C++/C/Java textbooks: ACCU.org
Comments: Lots of book reviews on a bunch of topics. To be honest, I still haven't seen a website that covers these three languages as well as good books do.
After all this, hone your google and google.groups skills and you should be able to solve any problem.
--------
Bleah! Heh heh heh... BLEAH BLEAH!!! Ha ha ha ha...
The Brainfuck programming language
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
Well, for those like myself who are forced to beat their heads against the wall that is Fortran, there's a great introduction over at the Queen's Universoty of Belfast. So far it's told me all the basic syntax stuff I need, so it makes a really handy reference.
As for Fortran 77 [shudder] (and yes, I have to work with it regularly...), a search for prof77 readily yields a relatively tiny document that contains pretty much all the F77 information you'll ever need -- it's shockingly complete considering its size. I recommend finding a .ps version.
-Erf C.
Cthulu always calls collect...
-Chris
It's still really useful. I'm usually able to find what I'm looking for via Google's interface.
-Bill
SlashSig Karma: Excellent (mostly affected by moderatio
Check out the "X topic For Dummies" series... They are great. Humorous, straightforward, great for beginners. Though they are aimed at newbies, they aren't as insultingly barney style as the title makes them seem. Obviously, you eventually will want to seek out more advanced texts, but the Dummies series provides a great baseline, they don't just teach you how to do something, but also how it happens behind the scenes in general terms- specific enough to have an idea what your computer thinks when it sees your code, but not where each and every bit goes and what it does when it gets there.
Great books! I learned more in 5 minutes with the C++ for dummies book than I learned with the other 5 or so C++ books I have tried to use. I'd recommend getting a Dummies book, and get a large reference(rather than tutorial) book... the Dummies book will give you the basic knowledge and fundamentals, and the reference book will give you the specifics.
I'm so psyched no one mentioned this yet, for ASP and other windy-type stuff (including db and webserver config, etc.) 15seconds.com is really, really good. One of the first places I go, always. The examples are practical and not trivial, and the writing is clear.
I also use webmonkey when I need to learn the very basics (it's good for introductions to topics you know absolutely nothing about).
closed minded is as closed minded does
http://www.c2.com/cgi/wiki
OH, I forgot 4guysfromrolla.com is good too, for the same kind of stuff 15seconds does...
closed minded is as closed minded does
They really screwed up the MSDN search engine, I type in words in the MSDN search engine. I get either no hits or unrelated hits.
I type the same words into Google, I get a list of relevant web pages at MSDN.
So now I use Google for all my MSDN searches.
"For a successful technology, honesty must take precedence over public relations for nature cannot be fooled." -Feynman
Just a recommendation on mysql books. In general I love O'Reilly books but stay far far away from the one on MySQL and mSQL. The information is not useful and poorly organized. If you want a good MySQL book, get MySQL by Paul DuBois published by New Riders.
The sister (brother?) site of Developerworks is Alphaworks. It's a great place to find cutting edge software and several open source projects.
"For a successful technology, honesty must take precedence over public relations for nature cannot be fooled." -Feynman
Article Central - a collection of articles related to web development from all over the web. Updated sometimes every day, some times only every other day but always updated. They cover everything from Java to PHP to Macromedia products. Really a must if you are a web developer.
Devshed - I think someone already posted this link, but it's a really good source of tutorials and real world applications.
Freshmeat - Whenever someone tells me that they need a certain functionality, I look here first to save me some time.
Index.html and Index.css at Blooberry.com - no doubt the BEST HTML and CSS references available on the web. Tells you what elements and tags are supported by every browser out there, what version of the browser supports them, and any strange behavior that the browsers might exhibit related to that tag or element.
IBM Alphaworks - Lots of cutting edge software.
"For a successful technology, honesty must take precedence over public relations for nature cannot be fooled." -Feynman
When I decided to learn PHP, I just grabbed a copy of the documentation from the php.net website and started looking at code that can be found around on the net.
Sometimes the best way to learn a particular language is by example and trial-and-error
There are only 10 kinds of people in this world... those who understand binary and those who don't
Flamebait? Huh, guess the truth hit a nerve with someone. BTW, nothing against Slashdot. It's just kind of dumb to ask a question like that in such a volatile forum.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
ResearchIndex is the best resources on the web when looking for anything pertaining to computer science technical reports. Learn it. Use it. Love it.
I find http://www.cplusplus.com to be a handy reference for C/C++ standard libraries and syntax/operators.
BlackGriffen
This kinda stuff seems very tough to find. The only one I found depended on using a commercial IDE which did not interest me. All free software please. thanks.
Liberty.
Hes a good game programmer but hes not the worlds best C programmer.
IF he did write a book on C it would be good for game programmers to read maybe.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
For a new topic, I usually go to www.cetus-links.org, which is a very comprehensive collection of links,books, articles,... for almost any language, buzzword, and technique...
And well-maintained, too.
C-C
Oh. Then, next weekend, Chris is going to ask for references about how to program books! Whoa!! Well, I guess in that case, there can be only one... ;^)
main(O){10<putchar(4^--O?77-(15&5128 >>4*O):10)&&main(2+O);}
The best resource from java, besides the sun's various documentations is http://www.jguru.com, not only do they provide tutorials for basic things like Java Exceptions, but also allow you to post questions regarding different issues like various configurations of servers like Apache tomcat, Weblogic, etc. Jguru is an excellent way to see what the real life problems are, and what solutions are there.
[alk]
Dive Into Python, a free online book for advanced programmers
Python FAQT, user-expandable knowledge base with great questions and answers
Python Library Reference, ed. by Guido van Rossum and Fred L. Drake, Jr. [need I say more?]
Python Tutorial, ed. by Guido van Rossum and Fred L. Drake, Jr.
The Whole Python FAQ
Since I cannot see them, my .02:
http://www.theserverside.com -> J2EE news, great level. Also J2EE patterns and book drafts. Great community.
http://www.jguru.com -> great faqs (quite in-depth content) and introductory texts also. Not any news, though
http://java.sun.com -> search for the blueprints, and the javaOne slides each year to follow the state-of-the-art on java technology, resumed. The community sucks, though.
http://c2.com -> not java, but great pattern repository, great community, and take years to read *part* of it.
I found http://developer.java.sun.com/developer/onlineTrai ning/ a very invaluable tutorial site. It is written in big part by the actual Java developers, and explain almost anything you'd like to do with Java, going from the pretty basic to the most advanced.
Gets 5 stars from me.
The problem with on-line C++ is that many people who claim to write about it don't know their subject, and consequently write superficially correct code that actually sucks. I'm sorry to name names, but the much-recommended-here CPlusPlus.com is one such site; their "Hello, world!" program at the start of their isn't even correct. I'd give sites like that a miss if you're seriously interested in learning C++.
One good source of information about C++ (and many other programming-related subjects) on-line is the related Usenet newsgroups, particularly the group specifically for learners if you're just starting out, or the moderated C++ group for more advanced subjects.
Many of these groups also have helpful FAQs, available (as usual) via the Internet FAQ Consortium. Again, for those just starting out, I'd particularly recommend the alt.comp.lang.learn.c-c++ FAQ, which has links to helpful on-line resources, free compilers, etc.
There are a few web sites of which anyone in the C++ field should be aware.
There are a few decent on-line references to the standard library:
About the only decent on-line C++ tutorial I know of the electronic version of Bruce Eckel's "Thinking in C++" books. You can find a complete copy of these, and several of his other books, at his books web site. (He also has books on Java, C#, Python amongst other things, and all of his work I've read has been reasonably good.)
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
I find Cppreference.com to be very simple and to the point. It's got information on both the standard C library, the C++ STL, and a few other common core components of both C and C++. Definitely just a lookup resource for people already familiar with one or both languages, and not entirely complete, but a quite useful resource nonetheless, especially for mundane but necessary things like function names and parameter order/datatype.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
They use #include <iostream.h> and ignore the std namespace. This is wrong both in theory and in practice.
In theory, they claim to teach ANSI C++, which this never has been.
In practice, on most platforms that have both the old-fashioned <iostream.h> and the standard <iostream> headers, there are subtle differences between the two. There is the obvious, but usually non-fatal, namespace issue. More seriously, many of the <iostream.h> implementations were different (duh -- that's why we have a standard now :-)) and so code using them is likely to suffer from subtle problems if it's used with a different compiler, or even a new version of the same one, or if it's ever converted to use the standard <iostream> header instead.
These are clearly no more than irritations in the trivial example, but the use of the non-standard header could have nasty consequences in real world code. There's just no reason to do it with any modern C++ compiler, and yet here they are illustrating it as "ANSI C++" on page one. :-(
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.