C++ Tutorials - Absolute n00b spoonfeed

Heya ppl!

It's about time I write to you guys what's been on my mind for a while about this whole Absolute N00b Spoonfeed project. This will be a bit of background, a bit of a FAQ, a bit of plans for the future, and a bit of a poll for your feedback. Consider me drunk while I was typing all this though, so please forgive all the ranting and whacky hard-truth stuff

Now without further ado, sit back, relax, and be informed.

1. Why

Why in flying spaghetti monsters am I making video tutorials about programming in C++?

Well, I have 2 answers for that.

1. I have a big confession to make to you all; If you believe that i'm some C++ expert programmer worthy of teaching the n00b masses how to program, you have been terribly mislead. I'm just a n00b myself! A dumb stupid newbish clueless n00b like any other. I've got lots of unfocused will and motivation to MAEK AWESUM PROGRAM THINGZ!!!11, and my brain is exploding with ideas close to a point of schizophrenia. I never took a single class on computers, IT, programming, or anything the like. Just a n00bish n00b.

And thus I began my journey to start figuring out how to realize my dreams of programming awesome stuff. I began reading online tutorials, getting myself a book or 2, subscribing to forums and chatrooms, and ended up after a while being half pleased half disillusioned. Pleased because I loved the awesome power that programming offers, the fact that you can program anything you'd like, even invent your own operating system like windows! (alright alright i know its not that simple... but I digress). And yet I was disillusioned because it was sooooo sooooo hard to figure out and learn programming. Tutorials and books were talking gibberish all the time, assuming I understand everything they're babbling about. All back-cover promises that the book is "For the absolute beginner - No previous knowledge required" were disappointingly lies and deception. I wanted to go over to the writer and point out thousands of phrases in his book and say "How the heck did you expect someone with no previous knowledge to understand what you were talking about there?? Shame on you!"

But I never got around doing that Instead, I started asking hundreds of questions in forums and public chatrooms, trying to make sense of those cryptic mysteries of programming that the books and tutorials failed to explain well enough for my knucklehead brain. I was hoping that maybe some real life humans who already made sense out of it all can come to my aid and bring me up to date on things.

To my shock and horror, the "humans who already made sense out of it all" were in no mood to share their findings. I was taunted and scolded and made a fool out of. They kept throwing "RTFM" and "google it" at me like it was all they knew to type. They kept saying how I'm a lazy dumb student who wants others to do my homework for me. They said nobody wants to help me because I'm not helping myself, they even kicked me out of their forums and chatrooms for "being a jerk", "asking stupid questions", and "trolling".

Only after many months of cracking my skull against a brick wall did I figure out how the basics of the n00b-asking-pro relationship works and how to behave when asking them questions. (This would be altogether another thread i'd need to write, about correct netiquette and prerequisits when asking programming (and such) questions in a public forum/chatroom).

But back in those dark days I really did not appreciate the attitude the pros were having towards me and other n00bs in my same situation. Even though most of their arguments are true (about RTFMing and googling and trying to help myself instead of "running to ask dad" for every little question/doubt, etc etc etc) and yes I understand that they aren't getting paid by the hour to answer all my questions. But it seemed like they have this vendetta against n00bs, to be rude to them and make fun of their ignorance. While 'RTFM' is true, it was also their way of saying "get out of here you dumb n00b, we're not interested in helping you". I totally disagreed with this attitude and perception of theirs that n00bs are morons and no one should bother helping them. I argued that pros should help out n00bs and be nice, or at most remain silent and not harass them. I was strongly anti-RTFM. Well, not really, 'cuz RTFM is true. But the dismissive "you can't be helped 'cuz your stupid" attitude that came along with it was just wrong.

So- why am I making C++ programming tutorials? To show those kind of guys that yes you can be nice and explain things to n00bs. This is how I hoped someone could help me out, with a clear explained tutorial like the vids I made. Back then I promised myself that unlike these other obnoxious pros out there, when I get to the top - I won't forget the n00b I once was, and I'd actually help 'em out.


***


2. After learning and fooling around with code for a couple of years I thought it was maybe time to begin exploring one of my grand dreams: 3D Video game programming! Yessss!!!

Once again I started reading online tutorials about 3D programming, getting hold of some books, and asking (wiser) questions on forums and chatrooms. once again, everything was going really slowwwww... It was all soooo hard to learn and figure out, I was almost totally disillusioned and many times considered just giving up.

I was reminded of the days I wished there were extremely-comprehensive tutorials on C++, and now i was wishing there were such tutorials on game design and game programming. But there were none to be found, except for some more books/tutorials who fail at being very comprehensive.

I told the big void "Look, what I mean is basically a tutorial something like this:" and I went ahead and made the first couple of C++ tutorials of the Absolute n00b spoonfeed, with intentions that one day I'll tell the big void "See? that's what i'm talking about, that's what I mean by comprehensive tutorial ok? good. Now, I brought all the n00bs up to where my knowledge reaches. Can someone take it from here and teach me (and everyone else) from this point onward? 'cuz I can't figure it out anymore".

By that time though...



2. Disclaimers

1. DONT LEARN MY TUTORIALS!!! XD

I respect those pros on the forums/chatrooms. After all they are actual real-world programmers who have years of experience in the field and they actually learned what they know by going to good classes and working hard R-ing TFM. I take anything they tell me as an important lesson to be learned.

Some stuff they say are quite outrageous. Like "Most college/university professors who get paid to teach C++ are really bad at it and you shouldn't learn your C++ from them", or "Microsoft should be burned alive for making certain changes to the C++ Standard in Visual C++", and much more. But like I said, I believe them, and I suggest you do too.

Here's one very important thing i'd like to discuss now;

The pros claim that "The internet and bookshelves are full of tutorials, books, example code, and programming guidelines that are very misinformed and downright mistaken. Grasping C++ is complex enough, making a tutorial/book to explain C++ is definitely prone to error. Don't learn from noobs, don't copy/paste any random C++ code you find online and dont learn any lessons from random code you find online. Consult the good books from pros only and refer to the C++ Standard often. Ignoring all this will result in you picking up bad habits and horrible coding styles that are abominations to the world of programming and are extremely hard to get un-used to and eventually become the source of unreadable rotten code full of ugly bugs."

Although it seems quite harsh but I learned that it's true. There are more ways you can go wrong with C++ than ways you can go right. Be extremely wary of material written by noobs, lest you learn their bad habits and get used to them yourself.

Yes - the pros will definitely recommend you should NOT learn C++ from my tutorials!

This is my official disclaimer: I am just a noob like any other who thinks he can teach everyone how to program in C++. The pros advise you to stay away. You've been warned!

For starters, the proper way of learning programming is to learn programming concepts, software design, the founding blocks of being a good software developer. These foundations can then be applied to any programming language you want! The actual syntax and programming language you choose is a secondary thing compared to knowing well how to think about programming and solving real world problems with software development.

But instead, I just teach you guys C++, and I even excused my way out of teaching Design in one of the videos! One day your gonna sit flustered in front of your computer trying to organize your thoughts and figure out a plan of action of how to make some awesome program that you really wanna make - and you'll be stuck in that confused state forever and ever!

Bad boy that I am! Don't listen to me! Don't learn my tutorials!


***


2. The extent of my n00b-friendly'ness

"Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning." - Rick Cook

If that's true about software, how much more so in the realm of learning how to program (take me for example - the universe's latest release of Big-Better-Idiot version 72356.0 )

There are millions of levels in n00bs. Those that are sincerely trying and may make it one day but are just clueless, those that could make it but are too lazy and would like others to spoonfeed everything to them, and those that are just meant to be truck drivers, not software developers.

And anything in between.

Each level of n00b needs a whole new set of books and tutorials to teach him stuff at his level. If you're higher up you probably can understand things quicker so you need less explanation. Lower down may need to be spoken to like a 3 year old child with colored illustrations and lots of repetition.

The pros will hear none of helping out n00bs. Even the topmost n00b will have a real hard time getting accustomed to the real world of programming and programmers. Only smart people who speak real good english and listened well in math classes are worthy of being helped, by writing documents and books for their level.

I - with the whole n00b spoonfeed project - propose that we should "lower the bar" much more to allow n00bs into the circle of those who deserve being helped, making much more elaborate tutorials for lower levels of n00b (thus much more explanation and illustration needed).

BUT!

I have bad news for y'all: My patience for n00bs is not unlimited!!...

I'm friendly and anti-RTFM for many many more levels of n00b than whats usually tolerated in the pros circles. But my patience ends at some point.

I bring this up because of the really low-level n00bs that ask questions both here and on the youtube channel. Questions that are helplessly beyond answering due to thier epic n00bish nature, or questions which are answered in the videos themselves (!!). Here in the antiRTFM community, I hearby invent a new acronym: WTFV you moron!

What, after watching the video you still didn't get it? Well then, either 1) Go be a truck driver, it doesn't pay so bad. 2) Watch the video again, this time pay attention 3) Wait for the next generation of antiWTFV to come out where they'll implant brains into your skull with C++ knowledge already installed. Sorry dude, I usually cannot explain things any better than what I explain in the vids.

And about what I said earlier that I do agree with 'RTFM'; I was planning to make a wrap video one day about how to efficiently RTFM. How to efficiently google for answers to your C++ questions, how to lookup your compiler error codes and figure out what they mean, good websites where to solicit help and documentation, how to read and make sense of cryptic-sounding documentation-- what do you think I do when you guys ask me questions? I google it, RTFM it, look it up, and ask the pros!

Here are a few more kinds of questions I'll most probably ignore:
* Questions about code or programming guidelines you found in sources other than the n00b spoonfeed tutorials. Why are you asking me about stuff from other Websites/books/tutorials? I ignore these questions because either 1) I didn't cover the subject yet in our own tutorials 2) I never will cover the subject in our tutorials because whatever you're asking about is bad programming practice in the first place 3) This other source you're asking from contains wrong mistaken erroneus code/information to begin with 4) Why don't you go ahead and ask your question to the author of that source material you're asking about!
* Questions about other programming languages. Hello?
* Questions about super advanced stuff like GUI and 3D programming, stuff that's obviously far beyond where the spoonfeed is currently up to.
* "Can you plz bcuz I see your a nice person helping every1 mak me a program that will haxx my warcraft account so i can pwn my friends and email it to fatLazyGoodForNothing@doMyHomework.com kthxbai"
* "How do I craxx programs?"

This is my official disclaimer: Did you come to the youtube channel and/or this forum thinking you could really sit back relax and enjoy and i'll spoonfeed you everything you want and answer all your stupidest of questions? Well you have been decepted! It's a lie! I will not cater to all levels of noob. You've been informed!



***



3. Mood / Interest swings

As I mentioned, being a good n00b that I am, I'm near schizophrenic with ideas and projects and have absolutely no focus whatsoever. Unlike in real software designing/programming where everything is well planned out and specified, and as a matter of fact lack of focus can be (and had been) the death of multi-million dollar projects.

As such, sometimes I get plain old bored out of the whole programming thing altogether and I just go and play crysis instead. Then I go watching some youtube clips and then I get involved with other real-life responsabilites and then I eat vanilla ice-cream.

Haven't you guys noticed? Months and months went by in the past without a single tutorial clip uploaded, and other periods when I uploaded loads of clips.

I would've scored everyone's practice project submissions. I would've posted hunderds of practice projects and debug snippets, I would've made contests and joined projects, I would've taken up on so many of the offers to move to a better forum / website / etc... It's just that, I'm not in the mood of bothering to do it. I just do what I want to.

This is my official disclaimer: Did you think I'm always on your case making you more clips and answering your comments and forum posts and looking to make our community work better? You have been decieved! With a single click on the "Mark forums read" link I ignore all of your posts that direly need answering, muhuhuhahahaha. And anytime I want I'll just leave all you guys hanging in mid-air wondering if there's ever gonna be another video clip and meanwhile I would have escaped in my private rocket to venus, never to return. I'm just not in the mood sometimes. Sorry. Will you ever forgive me?

XD




3. Hope...

Have I epically destroyed your day in the 'disclaimers' section? XD muhuhuhuhahahaha

OK ok hang in there, there is hope. Ugly hope, but hopoe nonetheless.

First off, know that along with the whole "help the noobs" idea I had came the implicit given that I'd be offering the tutorials free of charge, accessible to anyone who want's to program stuff and needs to learn how (and thus won't be helped by anyone in the know. Well, at least not free of charge).

But as you guys were made aware, being as it is free of charge has its major disadvantages; I'm functioning on my own terms, I do whatever the heck I want and couldn't care less. I'm not exactly helping everyone out, I sometimes ignore your requests for help, I don't produce videos at any prearranged pace, I'm not teaching you guys the right stuff in the right way and lots of the info is of n00b quality (see section 2.1 for more details) and may be bad for your programming health, I'm not providing sufficient practice assignments at all, etc etc etc

More than that; there are more features I was thinking about doing which are missing in this project to make it a real absolute n00b spoonfeed, such as;

- Learning software design
- Having some big project in mind all along the way, designing/coding it up as we learn more and more until one day we end up with a finished product.
- DVDs, transcripts, code from the tutorials, maybe even a 3D program that teaches you C++ through playing a game or who knows wtf...

If I were paid something attractive enough, that could definitely motivate me to solve all these issues and do it right... (currently nothing's motivating me other than occasional mood swings. Donations are definitely not very motivating enough (go to the thread about donations- see my replies there? thats exactly how many donations i got, each for about $1. One was $10 i think, another was $60. thats it). Google ads are bringing in like $100 every 2 months. very boring)

But I'm all 'meh' about charging money atm. Maybe because my current mood swing has me totally uninterested or somethin'. I'm slightly scared at the prospect of signing on a responsability to do this project on a paid (thus timely and demanding) basis. I'd rather just keep it free and do whatever the heck I want.

But maybe if the income is good enough then I'll like it.

So I'm asking you guys: what d'you think? Keep it as-is, free and unpredictable? Or shall we discuss a reasonable membership fee and switch to better quality spoonfeed?

I know some of you guys are liek "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO stfu and keep it free! I'm totally going to get a pirated download of everything if this becomes a paid thing!..."

Oh yea, pirated downloads of my spoonfeed... another reason I don't like the idea. Everyone is just gonna get the stolen vids and then i'm not even gonna get $1 donations I know how stingy n00bs can be (talking first hand here, i've downloaded pirated stuff myself sometimes...) and I sympathize with them, which again is why I initially started out with the idea of it being totally accessible and free of charge.

wtvr




4. Appreciation

I'm receiving hueg amounts of thanks / positive feedback / praise etc on the YouTube channel, Youtube comments, Youtube PMs, the forum posts, forum PMs, and even comments from showmedo.com

Just wanted to let you know that your appreciation is highly appreciated. I may have enough quotes from you guys to get myself hired as a rocket-science programming instructor I wish I could program a bot that would compose personalized "thank you for your thanks" messages to reply each and every one of y'all.

Extra special thanks to those who were considerate enough to go ahead and donate! That is an altogether new dimension of appreciation, of which I'm very appreciative.



Well, i'm getting really tired and your getting really bored. Please reply with your feedback below.


NOTE: This post will probably be edited and fixed up a bit. Please be aware of changes/edits.

EDIT: added section #4 (which I forgot i wanted to mention initially)
EDIT: added bulleted list in section 2.2

Great read, eh, I'm guilty with the "wtfv" thing, I sent you the stupidest question ever. But I really don't get the "Don't learn C++ from my tutorials" part, your tutorials are incredibly noob friendly and easy to understand, when I started out with C++, I found a book that claimed "C++ for absolute beginners", and it was all so incoherert, nothing made any sence whatsoever, and it was 500 pages long! Then I found your videos and everything was so much clearer, those pro's are a bunch of snobs who cant seem to grasp the idea tha not everybody knows what a SQL database connection string is. And thanks to your tutorials, its so much easier to comprehend the more advanced tutorials.

About the "membership fee or no membership fee" part, I don't really know. I mean, I cant pay because I have a completley different currency and no credit card. But don't let that stop you, I guess its all up to you, if you feel like the amount of work you put into your tutorials should really bring in some income, or if you really need the money, then I guess, though, people like free things, the odds of something becoming popular is larger if the something is free, do you have enough viewers who would pay for your videos? Putting up a poll and seeing how many people would pay would make sence.

But anyway, your tutorials are excellent, they really helped me get started with C++, without them I would have just given up under the wave of strange and complex terminology. "The pros say don't learn by my videos", pfft, the "pros" are the same people that say "RTFM you dickwad" if you even dare to ask a question that might slightly seem somewhat n00bish.

Honestly post antiRTFM
Here is mine:

I began learning C++ from some book,i think it was (C++ how to program),lol it was very advanced. I learned some very very basic stuff from it,and when i come at arrays i gived up.Then after long period-3-4 months,i get the feeling to learn to program again,and i just cant beleave,i just read the Array part from that book,and i understand it,so what i want to say is that: Maybe when you first read some article from programming tutorial or book,you may not understand it the first week,but after some period,even without reading,when you read it again(for example after 1 month) you will understand it. Dont give up,and just DEEPLY GOOGLE about your problem,i wish i could find your tutorials at the my very beginning programming carrer,i think i would learn those stuff i learned form the books,for very shorter period of time.The C++ "pros" are really rude,but i understand them,they are right,just DEEPLY google it,and you will find the answer,i mean,they dont want to answer same questions for 100 times,i mean,we are just to lazy to try to FIGURE OUT by our selfs. When you find some problem,and you cant figure it out,just dont give up,sit back and try to solve it. Honestly,before long time,i didnt knew how to install Windows 98,but after a long period of trying,i installed it. There is no(mostly) question,that can't be answered. Honestly before few months,when i sow some OOP code,i just said my self,WTH is that,i just didnt knew what is that code for. But now i "can" program "OPP",so the only thing i want to learn now is HOW TO USE SOME LIBRARY,LIKE ALLEGRO,OR QT4 (<-- ohh thats my DREAM !!!),so i could make REAL PROGRAMS,which can everybody use
Anyway your videos helped me in lot of ways,i wish i could donate some money,but i dont have credit card.
About the "membership fee or no membership fee" part. IDK,i dont mind,because i know if you make payed videos,for some time they will be avaible on the internet for free,i wish i could pay for them,but i cant. So i dont mind,its your choice

I don't think anybody here is excepting to get a degree just from you videos or your forum. Your videos help open people's eyes on getting started and seeing that yes it will be a difficult road but at the same time enough encouragement to that it is possible for them.


I know what you mean on the IRC even though they say it's for noobs their more or less annoyed with any to simplicity of a question for them. So you either get short responses, rude ones or none at all. The questions they do answer are things still way over my head. I want to go to school to learn all this so I am learning as much as I can. One: to make sure this would even be something I want to do ,and Two: if it is something I want to do and go to school for it I want to be on top of the game and not get stuck with the thousand yard stare when the teacher starts talking. I took a couple math classes few years back now and saw that if I got stuck on something I would have been screwed. I don't want that to happen in programming classes.
Google has always been my best friend but sometimes I either can't type it in right to get what I'm looking for or I don't even know what to type with the question I have at the moment. Your forum is a great way to find what you're looking for and sometimes you just have to ask the stupid questions to hear it in a different way. I also have done Google to answer other peoples questions. I think it's sometimes the questions asked that could just as easily been Googled might be because they don't know enough to know what to Google(sometimes)


So don't be hard on yourself that what you are teaching is wrong. We are all responsible for our actions and our choices on how we should learn. If somebody wants to do it for a hobby and try learning only through reading, forums, and videos and build a messy programmed game well more power to them as long as they are happy. If they want a carrier well they better go to school and learn it the way the world expects it to be done.
Doing all this that you have is beyond the coolest(can't think of a better word at the moment)The time you have taken in making these videos and then creating a forum just to help, and all this for free if you stopped making videos(I would be sad) but I would understand we all have a life and you are spending yours helping people for free where others are doing what you do are making a buck. I have seen other videos and they are so vague and basically a waste of money they just tell you enough without telling you anything that really helps. I think the only way you could make a buck where people would jump to is if you started showing ideas on how to design(yes I know a few videos will never do to truly show design)then started putting together a game. You could probably make a couple games an introductory console game and a graphical game. You could do this all and not say anything until you where confident that you would finish it so as not to feel pressured about it from the forum. We all know that this would not get us out into the real world as a game programmer so it would be more for the hobbyist. 3DBuzz has a neat way from preventing pirating with their videos they have a membership with a monthly payment or they sell their DVD's. They watermark your name and address on the video so you most likely don't want to upload the vid to a pirate site if your name and address is on it.


So don't get yourself down, I'm not going anywhere this is a awesome forum with a lot of friendly people that are not rude to your questions. This sight has been a tremendous help to my confidence in programming and of course a great help. I also enjoy helping where I can even though I can't give the technical reason why they have their problems C++ is an excellent help on that part my help probably is a ducktape fix just to help them keep going on their projects and learning. I understand the copying of code from sites isn't very tutorialative and needing a deeper understanding of it is necessary to truly be a programmer but you have to start somewhere and we all learn as we code. I don't know how many times I hear how programmers make a program and later look at it and go what the hell was I thinking this is a horrible design. So we all have to start somewhere and are responsible for ourselves in how we learn and what we do.

antiRTFM your stuff is awesome no matter what is said
Thanks for all the work and effort you have done

EDIT: I wish I could donate but (for now I can't) since I'm a Mr. Mom at the moment my wife doesn't believe that any money should be spent unless its spent on her

first of:
woh, that's a really big amount of text.

don't blame me that I didn't totally read it please

Well, I think your tutorials are AWESOME, whatever any moron says. When I nearly gave up programming because of all the stupid crappy tutorials I saw yours. And because of your tutorials I'm programming, I guess I was still playing some stupid pointless MMORPG or so without you!

So I kinda thank my *little* programming life to you! (yeah lets just call it my programming life).

The forum isn't anything more or less then it should be, it's just perfect!

Anyway, I can just say: keep up the good work. Don't feel bad because some people say you're not epic. Because (I think) almost everyone on this forum loves your tutorials!


P.s.
Sorry if I annoyed you for keep sending you messages about my not really epic allegro tutorial on your forum lol ;d

I totally 100% agree with everything you said and I am very thankful on your videos no matter if they are sometimes not teaching the best proper way to programming software.

This part:

antiRTFM wrote:And about what I said earlier that I do agree with 'RTFM'; I was planning to make a wrap video one day about how to efficiently RTFM. How to efficiently Google for answers to your C++ questions, how to look up your compiler error codes and figure out what they mean, good websites where to solicit help and documentation, how to read and make sense of cryptic-sounding documentation, what do you think I do when you guys ask me questions? I Google it, RTFM it, look it up, and ask the pros!

Is really good, I can't wait to see this because I think you would do very good in explaining how to RTFM and how to help yourself when "daddy's not around" and just because daddy shouldn't be around for you every single time.

I also did understand everything you did posted here and once again, I totally agree with you and I hope you will continue good work and try your best to learn us something useful in C++.

antiRTFM wrote:
- Learning software design
- Having some big project in mind all along the way, designing/coding it up as we learn more and more until one day we end up with a finished product.
- DVDs, transcripts, code from the tutorials, maybe even a 3D program that teaches you C++ through playing a game or who knows wtf...

This is also ridiculously good idea, I can't wait for this to be realized...

I understand that if you would get pay for that stuff it would become a job and not a "just another thing to do when you want and feel like it" but maybe it would be good earn and you could enjoy it if you get yourself good mindset - I know I would pay some money to see this and acquire new knowledge by great tutor as you are

antiRTFM wrote:So I'm asking you guys: what d'you think? Keep it as-is, free and unpredictable? Or shall we discuss a reasonable membership fee and switch to better quality spoonfeed?

If it's something reasonable and if you show us few test runs how it would be realized, then sure why not - I would pay for knowledge that's normal stuff... it would be your effort that needs to be payed - you need to eat like everyone else.

antiRTFM wrote:I know some of you guys are liek "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO stfu and keep it free! I'm totally going to get a pirated download of everything if this becomes a payed thing!..."

Not exactly, you can continue with your free tutorials for people when you feel like it and make "membership area" for people who like to dwell into your tutorials a bit more serious... everyone is happy that way. The ones who don't want to pay or can't will continue to follow your "freebie" tutorials when you make them and other "paying" people will continue to watch both your free stuff and stuff they payed for (but this would be on regular basis and more professional).


Yup, pirating stuff would be an issue but now I don't see how to prevent it from happening... only to hope people will be good manner and will not do that stuff to people that like to help like you are.

devgeek++ wrote:Then after long period-3-4 months,i get the feeling to learn to program again,and i just cant beleave,i just read the Array part from that book,and i understand it,so what i want to say is that: Maybe when you first read some article from programming tutorial or book,you may not understand it the first week,but after some period,even without reading,when you read it again(for example after 1 month) you will understand it.

This is so true, same thing happened to me when I was learning passing variables from function to function.


So all in all, I am ready to support you if you want to make it more serious, but with or without that implementation I am staying put and enjoying this wonderful community

Thanks again!

I think the tutorials are great. As for the paid membership, you could try it out paying by paypal. Not sure how many would be willing to do that though.

I began learning through your tutorials. Anyone who knows anything about programming knows that there is no one size fits all. You have to develop resources on where to go for learning, questions, helping others. You do very well with the beginning stuff, which is why I point so many people to your tutorials. It is such a good beginners guide that I feel I am in the wrong if I do not point someone to it.

Your tutorials are really good for getting the logical thinking going and the memorization of syntax, as for design patterns that is the programmers responsibility. They need to buy a book on UML for organizing classes, or on specific design patterns if they want to develop anything time-consuming. I think you should keep it free, not because I want your tutorials for free, personally I think you will enjoy it and put your 110% into every tutorial if you work on them on your own time. If you charge people and cause pressure with time-constraints, your tutorials will become a lot like the books out their. (70% noobs stuff, 30% pro stuff that you do not understand.)

There are no perfect tutorials and because of this technically you should not learn from any of them because you "could" possibly pick up a bad habit. What happens then is we have no programmers in the world. People just need to accept the fact that us learners also have a responsibility to make sure what we are learning is what we need to learn. And learning is a road that is always under construction. As a programmer you are going to learn all of your life. You do not need to bear this responsibility for us, so dont worry about it. I am perfectly content with doing my own learning in between watching your videos and being a self learner is something every programmer will need to learn how to do.

Dont give up on these tutorials, they are extremely valuble to people just starting out and they are very good for getting peoples feet wet in programming.

Thanks,
Knight

It's good to see that your really a human antiRTFM thought you may have been an expert programming robot from the 30th century, i joke i would like to make a bit of a confession as well, I too have the lack of focus, which is why I havent done much coding this week, but what I really want to confess is that around 80 - 90% of my learning is done on the bus on my way to and from work reading books and guessing code. Ive never studied anything to do with computers in college just woke up one morning about 2-3 months ago, wonderd what C++ was (i didnt even know it was a language :S), typed into into you tube and now look at where I am.... i have a hobby =D So thatnks for your generosity.... ill be getting one of those pirated videos when you start charging for your vids.... LONG LIVE THE N00BS!

First, let me begin by answering your question,


YES, KEEP YOU SHOULD MAKE YOUR TUTORIALS, PAID ONCE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Why???

Because you deserve it, those stupid books, like sams teach yourself n all, selling over 2500000 copies???!!!!, while no body (or hardly 1 or 2) in the history could ever reach the last chapter, & its author earning millions and trillions for that stuff!!!! Then i guess my friend you should earn like zillions or even more for the work you are doing.

Your programming tutorials are so good that I cant understand any other book or tutorials, because i'm addicted to absolute n00b sp00n feed.

Though i'm only 15, and i cant donate, but i ve started to surf adds on neobux just to donate you, and i promise as soon as i hit the minimum payout i will donate you.

In future if i made a game or a software, 99% of what i earned i will definitely donate to you.

IF THERE IS ANY WAY I CAN HELP YOU OUT PLEASE LET ME KNOW, SO AT LEAST I ll BE ABLE ***** TO RETURN 0.001% OF WHAT I HAVE BORROWED FROM YOU ********


One thousand raised to power one thousand times THANKS antiRTFM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks a lot everyone for your awesome feedback!

Didn't reply yet? Post now!

I actually think your tutorials are really great. I've watched other tutorials online and yours were by far the best. I'm not sure why anyone would think your tutorials aren't helpful. I've read a C++ book and couldn't understand anything. After watching your video's and going back to the book, I could understand almost everything being said. I think the point of your tutorials would be to help people understand the concepts and basics of everything, while books would probably have a more professional lead to it. I also do think you should get paid, I honestly think you have helped more people than a lot of professionals have.

Ray5491 wrote:After watching your video's and going back to the book, I could understand almost everything being said.

I won't oppose you, but if this is the why you think that he should not be paid, then i would like to correct your words.

There are a number of "introduction only" books out there, and 90% of complete c++ books are in-complete, containing content which is way less and worth less than that of antiRTFM's. A nice example is book "C++ Demystified - A Self Teaching Guide (2004)" if you think antiRTFM's vids are incomplete then what would you call this book which doesn't even teach classes???!!!!

Another thing is that, antiRTFM clearly states that if starts to get paid for his work, he would definitely complete it on time.

cyberspy wrote:I won't oppose you, but if this is the why you think that he should not be paid, then i would like to correct your words.

I never said he shouldn't be paid; I actually stated I think he should.
What I meant was AntiRTFM has a great way of teaching, and after watching his video's and going back to the book I could understand everything I was reading. Mainly because of watching his video's. If he was to make a book, or a video I'm pretty sure he would do pretty well.

Well did you know, That your tutorials are very popular and are used as a reference to many people trying to learn C++, Instead of saying RTFM or Google it, they tell us to goto youTube and search for C++ spoon feed.

I believe it would be in great interest if these tutorials where still made and aimed in higher areas of development, How ever that requires the tutor to know about it first and have an interest.