Change of focus as regards IT Self Study. I haven't touched C++ since the start of April, this year, but have every intention of finishing the book. No doubt I will have to cover some old ground just to come up to speed again, if anything, that's the frustrating part.

The question is why I haven't continued with the self-study. At the start of April I got involved with creating this site and then shortly after that decided to update my Realbasic application that converts Wordpress Blogs to Drupal. The whole point I was learing C++, leading towards the GUI aspect, is that I could do away with Realbasic and not be held ransom to their pricing structure.

The change comes as of a few hours ago I ordered my copy of PureBasic. This software package is attractively priced and better still, the price covers all future upgrades. Better still, yet again, I have access to the Windows, Linux, Mac and Amiga versions.

This version of basic is implemented slightly differently than Realbasic and Visual Basic so there will be a slight incline of a learning curve to come to grips with the basics. From what I've read thus far it shouldn't be that difficult.

I've also got Ruby waiting in the wings but I've got a feeling it'll be waiting there for a while.

As of tomorrow, I'll go searching for some tutorials, get use to some of the basics and then, maybe within a week, start to the process of converting my Realbasic Wordpress to Drupal converter to Purebasic. That process will be part of the learning experience, so it will take time. That's not to say that I won't stop any Realbasic development. If a bug is found, I'll fix it and release a new version.

A zero week this week, not even a casual glance at the book (C++ Primer Plus Fifth Edition by Stephen Prata). In fact the book is still open, bookmark in place, at page 771.

For this week (week #20), my entire time was devoted to getting this web site up and running (in C++ speak should that be *this???). I'd been procrastinating for weeks and so decided to just get the site up and running. It went live on Wednesday 2 April, 2008.

So now the site is live I can get back to the reason why I created (*this) it in the first place; to assist me with my study.

Commenced Chapter 14 of C++ Primer Plus Fifth Edition by Stephen Prata. This chapter dealing with class templates.

Not that many hours devoted to study this week. Other time devoted to establishing a new website to cater for C++ study and other technical IT issues.

Completed Chapter 13 from the book, C++ Primer Plus Fifth Edition, by Stephen Prata. Studying this chapter highlighted an obscure compiler/linker error which most likely only occurs when progressively compiling. By that I mean, write some code, compile and check, write some code compile and check and so on. It was not pointed out by the text of the chapter. It caused me some grief, required some extra research but finally nutted it out. As a result I wrote an article/paper relating to this feature which I'll publish when my new site is up and running.

A little more study time than the previous week, the six hours evenly spread over four days. Continued with Chapter 13, Class Inheritance - Review Questions and Programming Exercises. One programming exercise remaining.

That's it.

Not that many hours for the week just gone, only 3.8, way down on my previous two weeks.

I started the week with a cold and flu and couldn't be bothered thinking so on that day I just messed around improving a previous program, remove vowels, which I'd written and posted. I changed things around, utilising strings rather than character arrays and accounted for both upper and lower case. I didn't include this time in my study hours, probably should, as it could be considered review hours. I uploaded the program and can be found here. You'll note that the code I post now is syntax highlighted. That's created by a little module I added which I got from here.

On Tuesday and Wednesday I continued with Chapter 13 relating to Class Inheritance - Abstract Base Classes and Dynamic Memory Allocation.

From Thursday, for the rest of the week, my time was devoted to creating another website. My next site will be IT only, so that means for starters it'll cover my C++ and Drupal stuff. This stuff really needs to be separated from my running and training.

I've purchased a few domain names which I won't reveal just yet until I've sorted out a few issues here and there. Some of the issues are:

1. transfer of existing data - (do I bother)
2. redirecting hits (if data transferred)
3. finalise purpose of site (have clear goal)

Well that was my week.

Week # 15 done and dusted and what a whopping week it was. 21 hours all up, evenly spread over 5 days, actually 6 days but the sixth day (Saturday) was only 30 mins worth.

As I'm writing this late Sunday night my primary reference book (C++ Primer Plus, Fifth Edition) is sitting open next to me, bookmark in place, at page 668. What's bugging me is that I'm only a tad past the half-way mark. The remaining pages looks ever so thick and I'm hoping it's not going to take another 15 weeks to complete. I don't think so but at the same time I'm not going to get ahead of myself at the expense not really understanding the goods.

For this week I completed Chapter 12 which dealt with Classes and Dynamic Memory Allocation. General topics including implicit & explicit member functions - and, can that be confusing. Default constructors, copy constructors (shallow/deep copying), overloaded assignment operator - similar issues as per copy constructor along with checking for self-assignment. Matching of new with delete and to further complicate things the use of placement new which impacts upon destructors.

Study wise, a very productive week, 16 hours spread over 5 days. When I say 16 hours I mean 16 hours. I use a stop-watch program to keep track of the hours and religiously stop it when taking breaks. At the end of this process (studying from the book) it'll be interesting, well for me at least, knowing how much time, both in hours and weeks, were spent in order to attain a certain level. This particular figure will be a yardstick for further C++ study (I'm thinking in terms of GUI programming).

Continued with Chapter 11, the programming exercises, completing them and the chapter on Thursday. The programming exercises were relatively straight forward.

Back in week 5 I wrote a program, which was not a part of the book, merely to test my knowledge at that point in time. That program, being a simple single source code file, accepted user input of distance and time (broken down into component time parts), calculated the pace (mins/km) and displayed it.

I revisted that program and completely re-wrote it, this time incorporating Class and Objects and the inclusion of multiple source code files (headers and .cpp's).

1. Each run (distance & time - duration) is an object of the Class Run
2. Each object now accounts for a user defined distance units (km or miles)
3. The class handles all user input, calculations and output
4. Created a functions.h and functions.cpp file which holds the function necessary to clear the input buffer. This sequence of code used in numerous places throughout the program, therefore an ideal candidate to form a function
5. Fixed output display whereby previously for seconds, if less than 10 seconds, only one digit was displayed ie 5:2 (5 mins 2 secs) should be 5:02.
6. Regardless of the user inputted distance units, displayed also is the opposite version, so if kilometres is selected, mins/km is displayed and then mins/mile displayed. This was an afterthought, but it highlighted how easy programming with objects and classes really is. It only took a few addition lines of code to achieve it. I was using what I had already written. At this point the light globe lit up.

The program is nothing earth shattering, it was simply done to cement my learning to date. I believe this is the process where learning actually takes place.

I know in time I'll look back on this code and probably cringe, as I did viewing my program written back in week 5.

Briefly touched on Chapter 12, Classes and Dynamic Memory Allocation, and that's where I'll continue from next week.

Another 'plugging away at it' type week. Not that many hours spent studying, only seven hours spread over five days. Nonetheless, I'm still making progress and not getting too far ahead of myself which is quite easy to do when self-studying. I would prefer to put more time in but there are other things to do.

This week (Week # 13) I continued with Chapter 11 from the book, C++ Primer Plus, Fifth Edition, and currently at the programming exercises at the end of the chapter.

In particular this chapter introduced the 'Overloading Operator' either as a class member or friend function. Effectively accounting for situations where 'answer = class + primitive' (member function) which, mathematically, is the same as 'answer = primitive + class' (friend function). Mathematically they are the same but under C++ in order to be in sync with mathematics both versions have to be accounted for ie. coded.

In explanation and clarification of the above, user created vector classes were introduced. These vector classes incorporated both the polar and rectangular co-ordinate system. This aspect alone gave me a heap of ideas on how to eventually write my own running/fitness program which will incorporate GPS mapping.

The chapter finished off with an explanation and examples of 'Automatic Conversion' and 'Type casts for Classes'.

Next week, obviously, I'll continue with the programming exercises, hopefully finish them. A while ago I wrote a simple program which converts distance and time to pace (a runner's utility). This was written (coded) prior to studying classes. I'm thinking of revisting that code, convert to classes and include other little bits I've since learnt.

Anyway, that was the week that was.

Not as productive as the previous week, from a studying perspective, only 2.1 hours spread over three days. I managed to complete chapter 10 in my first session for the week, that accounted for 30 mins on the Tuesday.

Thursday and Saturday I commenced chapter 11, Working with Classes, and this progressed the learning to 'overloading operators' and 'friend' functions. Not much time spent on these but they appear to be relatively straight forward.