🚀 go-pugleaf

steveh@fishnet.net writes

 > In <4df3d4$i31@bolivia.it.earthlink.net>, Anthony Kanner <kanner@earthlink.net> writes:
 > >I can really learn all of the features of watcom c++ without 
 > >getting the BIG bookset?
 > 
 > Read the online docs and look at the online examples?

There are at least two distinct questions here:

	How do I learn C++?
	How do I learn Watcom's C++ program development environment?

I suspect the answers to these two questions are not identical.

It may be possible to effectively learn what is necessary for true
mastery of a program development environment from the online documents
and online examples. That is not my personal experience, but it is a
claim often made. I find that an hour or two with an experienced user
at the early stages of learning does miracles.

Most people do not learn C++ well from documentation of language features
and short examples. The concepts behind the features are likely to be lost.

The key to good C++ programming is not comprehension of individual features,
but an understanding of the concepts and techniques that these features
were designed to support.

In my experience, that understanding best obtained through a combination
of reading and experimentation. For the reading part there is no substitute
for a good textbook or at least a collection of good papers.

By `good' I here imply texts that focus on concepts and the relationship
between concepts and code, rather than texts that either gets so into
concepts that they are of little use to practical programmers, or texts
that focuss of handy hints or language-technical artistry at the expense
of fundamental concepts.

Reading by itself - without experimentation - is sterile.

	- Bjarne