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Bjarne Stroustrup: [1] Don’t panic! All will become clear in time; §2.1.
[2] You don’t have to know every detail of C++ to write good programs; §1.3.1.
[3] Focus on programming techniques, not on language features; §2.1.
That's from the great book, The C++ Programming Language, 4th Edition[^]
In general, it is very good advice for devs.
Don't panic. So true in many situations.
You don't have to know every detail. Just do something! 
Don't get caught up on language features, learn good techniques. 
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Quote: You don't have to know every detail. Just do something!
Very true. If you try and learn every little nook and cranny of a language you will spend inordinate amounts of time on trivial and hardly used features to the detriment of actually becoming skilled and fluent in the main parts used 99% of the time.
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
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I think [3] is the most important, even I would title it "design techniques".
Personally I'm big fan of Niklaus Wirth - Wikipedia, not because he is swiss  but because he did some fantastic Basic develpment work in building Compilers and languages.
modified 19-Jan-21 21:04pm.
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0x01AA wrote: big fan of Niklaus Wirth
Me too.
I recently bought his book, Algorithms + Data Structures = programs[^] , at a second hand store. Yes, recently. The book is foundational and can be read now.
The stuff in that old book is the real OOP. He was working stuff out in there and it still applies to real OOP. Very cool. He was the creator of Pascal too, right?
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Yep and capitalized Pascal known as MODULA 2
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Interesting. Looked up Modula 2 on wiki and I'm reading that. Thanks,
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I actually used Modula-2 in school. My Prof said it was the up and coming language.
Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend; inside of a dog, it's too dark to read. -- Groucho Marx
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<pre lang="text">I actually worked in Modula-2 for 10 years. Very clean language, easy to work with. Sad to say, we changed languages when we moved from DOS to Windows in 1996.</pre>
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Now I feel *really, really* old. I was learning this craft back when both of those languages (and Ada which is also a descendant) were new. We used stone knives and bear claws back then (to paraphrase Dr. McCoy).
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Member 11971640 wrote: We used stone knives and bear claws back then (to paraphrase Dr. McCoy).
Nope,
It was stone knives and bear skins as quoted from Mr. Spock in the "City on the Edge of Forever".
BTW: I feel equally old, I was learning C on my own while using Modula 2 on an IBM 4381 mainframe in the mid 80s. I hate Pascal, it's a fascist language if you ask me.
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Thanks for reminding me the author, couldn't find anything on the web (I have fragmentary memories of the title in italian and search engines suck).
* CALL APOGEE, SAY AARDWOLF
* GCS d--- s-/++ a- C++++ U+++ P- L- E-- W++ N++ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t++ 5? X R++ tv-- b+ DI+++ D++ G e++>+++ h--- ++>+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
* Never pay more than 20 bucks for a computer game.
* I'm a puny punmaker.
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You know folks, all of the latest versions of Professor Wirth's books are freely downloadable from Wirth's pages at the website of ETH Zürich (the Confederate Technical University of Switzerland at Zürich).
Prof. Niklaus Wirth (ret'd.)[^]
The latest edition of 'Algorithms and Data Structures' as it is now more simply called uses Wirth's OO language, Oberon, which builds on the earlier Pascal & Modula-2.
There's also an Oberon-powered mini-PC similar to the Raspberry Pi running around somewhere, IIRC.
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0x01AA wrote: Personally I'm big fan of Niklaus Wirth
I met him, along with Edsger Dijkstra, back in 1990.
"One man's wage rise is another man's price increase." - Harold Wilson
"Fireproof doesn't mean the fire will never come. It means when the fire comes that you will be able to withstand it." - Michael Simmons
"You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him." - James D. Miles
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Makes me think of a colleague of mine in the mid 80s. He is a DBMS man and a regular visitor to the VLDB (Very Large Data Bases) conference, and was for several years trying to get close to the great DBMS guru Jim Gray, hoping to touch his coat. Then one day, Gray came striding directly towards him with a big grin on his face: "Hi, is it so that you are a Norwegian? I know of no people more fun to get drunk with than Norwegians! Come along!"
Now the two became close personal friends for the rest of Grey's life, so there is nothing to be sad about. But I guess lots of people would get shocked if the first thing their idol says directly to them is "Come, let's get drunk together!"
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1: advice I live by... except now! There's a spider in my code!!! Aghhhhhhh!!!
2: I've found the worst developers are the ones that know everything there is to know about the language and absolutely bugger all about developing apps that people can actually use!
3: Indeed.
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R. Giskard Reventlov wrote: everything there is to know about the language and absolutely bugger all about developing apps that people can actually use!
agreed.
They often have multiple certifications. 
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Hi!
It's clear where he copied #1 from! Though he forgot the towel. It's just not the same thing without a towel!
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Super Lloyd wrote: It's clear where he copied #1 from!
You are correct.
The next chapter starts on the next page after that advice and includes the quote from Hitchhiker's.
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and of course, this can be translated to almost anything in life, not just C++.
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Time flies. It sure doesn't feel that long ago.
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It is still probably the best $189 I ever spent! (as far as roi)
"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse
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Actually, I believe it is older than that.
I used it for an app under Windows 95. (Visual C++ / MFC).
Back when it was called Visual Studio 1.x, 2.x, etc. Only in 2000, I think did they start calling it Visual Studio 20xx. Just thought it was interesting.
Edit
I am wrong. I guess it was called something different than what I was thinking back then. Hmmm...
Microsoft Visual Studio - Wikipedia[^]
Edit 2
I guess this is what I'm thinking about...
Visual C++ 2.0, which included MFC 3.0, was the first version to be 32-bit only. In many ways, this Visual C++ 2.x also supported Win32s development....
Visual C++ 2.1 and 2.2 were updates for 2.0 available through subscription.
Visual C++ 4.0, released on 1995-12-11[12] introduced the Developer Studio IDE
from Visual C++ - Wikipedia[^]
I
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Yeah, Microsoft C++ used that IDE all the way back in 1993-4-5 and I was thinking it was named Visual Studio but probably not. I think it was just called Visual C++. The old IDE been around a long time.
I remember Visual Basic 1.x released and was a separate IDE you installed and used. Interesting.
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