Hey, I am just wondering if somebody here can recommend a really good programming book including useful exercises in C++, Java, C or Python? I am currently reading "A learner's guide to programming using the python language" and want something similar but not necessarily.

This is a good link: http://projecteuler.net/

Also, for a book, since you've started with python, I'd recommend going with 'Learn Python the Hardway' http://learnpythonthehardway.org/book/

Thinking in C++ by Bruce Eckel. It's free, it's good and has a ton of exercises.

For C, C Programming: A Modern Approach is an excellent choice.

Cpp primer plus 6th edition has some good exercises at the end of the chapters.

Programming Pearls.

Is this not a good C book?
http://www.amazon.com/Programming-La.../dp/0131103628

I had a few people recommend it to me once before as being SICP-like in quality but oriented towards C.

It's an excellent book. Probably still the best programming book I own.

Yeah, I'm thinking about reading it soon. I don't want to become a C wizard but I want to learn more about what goes on at a lower level and might end up wanting to write/modify/use some C libs in web apps. I want to start toying with the idea of making 2d games and I imagine having the math-heavy logic in C is a good idea for performance.

Wow, project euler is awesome!!!
Also, they have exactly 400 problems now, just when i find them.
Witchcraft :O

Will try solving the problems with ...



JAVASCRIPT muhahahaha !
already have 2!

Dude, look into 'Pointers on C' http://www.amazon.com/Pointers-C-Ken...=pointers+on+c by Kenneth Reek.

I really can't remember what kind of exercises were in the book, but we used this in a class, and I really learned a lot.

It is a good book, great even. But it the latest edition was written in 1988, and there have been enough changes to the language since then that there are better choices, especially for a first book.

C Programming: A Modern Approach, 2nd Edition is the way to go.

Thanks for the tips, no Java books ???? Looking forward to some object-oriented in this week in the 6.00x course.

A lot of people aren't fond of Java's implementation of OOP. I'll just leave it at that. Maybe you can check out something like Smalltalk, Ruby or Python.

Here's a tool created by one of the professors from the university of Washington cse department.

http://webster.cs.washington.edu:8080/practiceit/

Well, why is Java not a good implementation of OOP? I thought the programming language itself was OOP but maybe I haven't had a lot of experience in different programming languages so I can't compare it with other languages like C, python etc. I know that game developers prefer to use C++ or C when they program their games and never in Java but I don't know the reason. Maybe it's because there is not a lot of freedom in Java? There are a lot of libraries and I have used threading which is kind of interesting actually.

Most game devs pick c or c++ because of performance reasons. That doesn't mean java is trash for games though, it just depends on what you're marketing towards.

You can make a browser based game and serve it through a java plugin which pretty much everyone has. I was Googling on this subject earlier and found this game:

It's written in java. The footage below is playing it in your browser with nothing but the java browser plugin.

Oh no I wasn't knocking Java's usefulness. I was just thinking strictly in terms of learning OOP from an educational perspective I think that there are better options.

Runescape is another good example of an impressive Java browser-based game.

Juk

Lol I have the Drakensang collection. Didn't know there was an online game might even be some sort of mod of one of the games I own...looks similar enough. Now I wonder if they were written in JAVA. The engine of the games I have kind of reminded me of Dark Age of Camelot.

Edit: Just read the German Wiki article on the game (German dev studio). Not a mod but it seems to be written in C++ and runs in the browser via a JAVA applet.

Oh hmm. I was Googling for "games written in java" and that came up. I also tried it for 5 minutes and it used the java plugin. I just figured it was written in java. Doh. Still pretty cool though. I wonder what's going on behind the scenes to run some c++ app through a java applet.

Java is not nice to program in. That is basically what it comes down to. It has a lot of advantages, it runs virtually everywhere, it is highly tuned at this point, tons of libraries, etc.

If you are just wanting to learn programming because you find it interesting in it's own right, I would *highly* recommend going down the path of a modern language: python, ruby, haskell; something like that. Low level programming won't go away, don't get me wrong; but in the end, if you can get 15x as many features implemented in the same time using one language rather than another, that is going to matter to you more than some theoretical drop in efficiency/speed, that you as a user can't actually notice.

Java is much slower than C/C++ do to it's VM model; and games are processor intensive often; this is why the big block buster games you see are often in these languages, however there are *plenty* of games written in other languages as well.

Python isn't quite as modern and mostly grown (I guess Python 3 is). Python was released in 1991 and JAVA was released in 1995

Any recommendations for books on Java? I'd like to get a firm understanding of the language with an end goal of creating a few Android applications.

If you want to learn actual programming (i.e developing strong algorithmic/problem-solving skills) as opposed to learning a language, read the first two chapters of:

The Structure and Inpretation of Computer Programs

Old book, but still used at Berkeley and MIT.

I'm already taking a few CS classes online and intend to take more as my skills advance. I just want a crash course in Java so I can produce a couple ideas I have for mobile apps and start building a portfolio.