U++ forum: Welcome to the forum

Re: What is the difference between learning U++ and Learning C++ through Microsoft Visual Studio? [message #51838 is a reply to message #51806]

Sun, 09 June 2019 10:14

peterh
Messages: 108
Registered: November 2018
Location: Germany

Experienced Member

It is -from my beginners experience- useful to use both, U++ and Visual Studio.

U++ ist full of examples and probably you first open one of the bazaar, tutorial or reference examples, and build it and try it.
This is easy to do in TheIDE.
If Visual C++ is installed, Upp can use the VC++ compiler to build the example projects.
You can use TheIDE to browse and read the source code.
You can also use the debugger in U++ to learn about the source code.
If the program was compiled with VC++, then you can also use VS to debug, because VS can read the debug information.

Using TheIDE has these advantages:
You have a GUI designer.
A lot of documentation is inbuilt to the sourcecode of U++ and you can only access this documentation in TheIDE.

Using VS has these Advantages:
U++ uses generic programming and overloaded operators a lot.
This to an extend, that even a skilled C++ Programmer cannot read an U++ program, because he doesnt know the meaning of these overloaded operators. He has first to learn the concepts of U++, before he can read the program. Now, if he cannot read it, he cannot write it. Wink

For this reason it is good to start with the examples.
If you use VS 17 or 19, then you can open the main.cpp of an U++ project. VS will analyze and crossreference the source code (be patient, it happens in background and takes some time) and if you point to an unknown operator VS displays nicely the type of the operator and can show its definition. TheIDE (the IDE of U++) cannot do this so fast and easy.
Unfortunately VS cannot build a U++ project, because it cannot interpret the makefile and so you probably use both, U++ TheIDE and VS.

This said, even learning C needs a lot of time, and before you learn C++ you should learn C. This is a relation like algebra and differential calculus, C is not different from C++, C++ is a superset of C.

To learn C, Visual Studio is probably better, because there is a lot of inbuilt help and documentation and countless (free) books and online communities.

So you can use TheIDE and VS both at the same time on the same file.

All the best,

Peter

[Updated on: Sun, 09 June 2019 11:24]

Report message to a moderator