Head stuck up cyber-butt

I have to first apologize for the seemingly ignorant nature of this post.

As I'v said before in other posts - I fall into the newest of the newbie catagories.
Iv been coming to antionline for a long time but mostly just to browse and I'v always found it helpful for info.

I really want to have a fully understanding of the technical side of cyber - space and lately have been spending hours in the tutorials forum. I use to learn very basic Vis. Bas. 5, but never really understood what I was doing - completely.
Now I'v decided to start to learn C++ and work from there.

I'v DLed Borlands C++ compiler as a start but I can't seem to run it. I get a flic of something on the screen and its gone (for all the .exe files except the one for trigrams).
Can someone please enlighten my ignorant ass as to how I can run the compiler and start exploring C++?

Thank you and I'm ignoring all the laughs from the experts reading this :confused:

I've had the same problem in the past, and actually gave up with programming for a while, but in my progressive knowledge believe I've found your answer. The borland you are using is a dos based program. Because of this, it will only open correctly from a command prompt. Try running it from MS-DOS prompt and type in the name of the exe file and hit enter. This should allow you to access the program. Once you've done that, you're on your own when it comes to advice from me, nonetheless, I hope this helps you to get started.

My other problem is that I'm in south Korea and all the OS's are in Korean.
Im on windows 98 now but the korean version. I tried running it from Dos and some Korean gabblity gook came up.
Is it possible to change the windows 98 language to english without an outside program?

I'd recommend that you program in the Bloodshed Dev-C++ IDE. It is pretty nice, and free. It has a compiler, and other helpful tools. The only bug I've found so far involves having white-space in the file names of the install folders / the names of your C++ source files. The program is still being developed, but is generally stable (at least my current version - 4.9.5.0). I can compile, edit, etc., with no problem other than that the white-space in file names.

Then, you just have to find tutorials or what not on programming C++. Hope this helps.

Link:
http://www.bloodshed.net/dev/devcpp.html

-Tim_axe

EDIT: I'm not too sure about changing the language settings. I don't know if it is supported, though. Try going to windows update, and downloading the updates to support other languages, but try to download the updates for your languages. Not too sure if this helps... I've had problems installing Japanese drivers on my 98se machine - english version. 2K ran the setup program for my drivers, but there was no way for me to figure out which characters the boxes that replaced the text represented... Hopefully someone else will be able to point something else out, if there is anything else... Good luck!

Ok I will ignore the laughs again - - - - -

To run a file from DOS is just - from the prompt: run/<filename.filetype>? Correct?

Again I'm sorry to the experts my embarrasment is harsh.

you should be able to just put in the name of the file, but the extension will do the same. So yes, if your file is borland.exe, at the command prompt type "borland.exe" and press enter. If that doesn't work you may need to find the folder that it's in. let's say it's in the folder "borland" within "program files". you could access this by first typing in "cd\program files\borland", and press enter. Then, you would type in the name of the program file "borland.exe".

Now for your question about languages. This SHOULD help you, but I give no guarantees. It changes the regional settings, but it may or may not change the language. Go into, My Computer\Control Panel\Regional. Once there, there should be a dropdown box wich lets you choose your region. Choose English(US) or something to that extent, and see if it fixes your language problem.

You need to find out if you have a command line compiler
or an integrated development environment.

If it is a command line compiler, you type: COMPILERNAME SOURCEFILENAME <ENTER>
example: BCC MYPROG.C <enter> and it will compile MYPROG.C

If it is an Integrated Development Environment, When you run the program,
it will take you to an editor screen where you type your source code
and then click drop-down menus to compile, link, debug etc. In fact, it looks
a lot like QBASIC.

It sounds to me that you have a command line compiler. They're not too
user friendly for beginners.
:cool:

You might want to edit the path so you don't have to type cd\program files\borland all the time.

c:>edit autoexec.bat

ex:

path=c:\windows;c:\program files\borland;

c:>autoexec.bat

This way you can create a directory to put all your program files in and compile the files in that directory. You may have to change the attributes (hidden,system) in order to edit autoexec.bat.

Just a quick suggestion. C++ is a noble effort for a beginner, but it may be a bit advanced to begin with. While I do not deny that many people have been able to pick up C/C++ without a problem, there are also many people who memorize pi to the 1000th decimal for "fun". :D

Maybe the jump from Visual Basic to C/C++ is a bit much. Would you consider learning a more relaxed language like perl, or python? You may be able to pick those languages up a bit faster, and they're readily available for the PC for free. Many of the concepts in C/C++ programming are easily translated from perl and python, and both use some occasional C/C++ syntax. A transition from one of these languages to C/C++ would probably be much easier.

Just my $.02.