An idea to help EVERYONE: Interactive Resource Guide!
I have been trying in vain to locate a concise resource/timeline chart that could guide me through this maze of Programming languages, SDKs, Libraries, Includes, …
Perhaps a guide already exists that I have not yet stumbled upon?
The web is rife with programming examples that appear to solve problems, only to discover the solution is based on a no longer available/supported resource. Dates on all postings sure would be nice. Oops I digress, let me get back on target.
This is a call to anyone interested in trying to organize all this information.
C, C++, C#, .NET, VC++. C??, win32, MFC, framework 1.1, 2.x, 3.?, COM, curses, ncurses, ??? and boy am I just scratching the surface. So my beginnings are modest, though not humble. The C series of languages and associated resources are rich enough to build quite a full guide. It could grow to encompass all programming languages later.
I am hoping an interactive document that shows as many relations as possible between C languages and resources, timelines of support/usefulness could be created.
Follows an example of the concept, it (WMI) is NOT specifically what I am looking for here. It is just an example. My problems are much deeper than this:
For example: Should you still use WMI? (Windows Management Instrumentation)
Apparently it was introduced in Win2000 and I think support for it is included in Win2K, XP, and maybe beyond. If I go to the official Microsoft Website to download the SDK, it has been removed. (no nice message just a broken link)
http://msdn.microsoft.com/downloads/list/wmi.asp
So my guess is that it has been supplanted by something else that may or may not support its calls.
In the above reference, there are very many examples on the web that use it and many books that feature it. But alas, it must be dying or why is it not available from MS any longer? Again. Not looking for an answer to the above. It is just one example of the confusion any programmer must deal with.
So the guide would have an entry in the time line that showed a resources conception and its demise. But more importantly what used it, where to get it (If available) and when to move on and to what new resource provides similar functionality. And of course the new resource has its own entries in this guide as well.
Seems like a wiki might be the medium of choice here?
The web is so broad that a person could easily spend days reading about a subject that looks promising. Hitting random sites, reading and decoding long lists of examples to discover later rather than sooner, that it is a dead or dying end. (What does MS call it now? Depreciated?) There must be a better way to break in to a continuing discipline as complex as programming.
The answers to all the above come with time and dedication to your discipline. I have a library filled with C and other programming books. I have Gigabytes of programming examples stored on disk. With enough experience one learns what connects to what.
But the web is better than that now. Or at least it could be. It should be possible to reduce some of the time by appropriate guidance.
Here are a couple of sites I stumbled on that may have some relevance in these concepts.
Very modest beginning.
http://www.devx.com/SpecialReports/Article/38900
A stranger tool but perhaps with more promise for expansion.
http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
drilling deeper from the above link (C Language)
http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/extensions/freemind/flashwindow.php?initLoadFile=/wiki/images/7/7f/CProgramming.mm&startCollapsedToLevel=5&mm_title=C%20Programming
http://freemind.sourceforge.net/FreeMind-computer-knowledge.png
Maybe that’s too in depth. Perhaps a more modest chart of relationships could be a start?
Any way, hopefully someone more talented than I might have an interest in such an endeavor. Many would profit from it. Probably literally.
Dekaya