How can I have C++ programming experience on my own?

[newbiecoder]

Hello, I am a university student and I have very few courses this term so I have a lot of free time. In this term I want to improve myself and gain experience on C++ with algorithms and data structures. But I don't know how to do that... I have a basic knowledge on C++ but I don't have any programming experience. Can you give me a few tips about that? What books should I read, what websites should I hang out etc..
Thanks in advance!

[Narue]

Books and "hanging out" don't build experience, writing code builds experience. Think of a few projects that seem within the realm of your capabilities and follow them through to completion.

[mike_2000_17]

>>Can you give me a few tips about that?
code, code, then code some more. Do it until your fingers or brains are numb (whichever occurs first), then rest, then repeat. Find a project you like, and get cracking. Make sure the project is within your grasp, but does challenge you (i.e. the perfect project is one that has high interest for you and for which you can already tell, roughly, how it should be done, but with several (big) holes, these are the parts from which you will learn the most). Program it incrementally, doing unit-testing will save you a world of trouble at debugging.

>>What books should I read
Read this thread.

>>what websites should I hang out
Daniweb! I guess you can also browse sourceforge for some project ideas and maybe join one, or build a project upon some existing open-source library. Open-source software is a great resource to expose you to both very well programmed software (e.g. Boost) and very poorly written code (e.g. like 90% or so of open-source software). Learning to deal with other peoples code and interfacing with external libraries is a crucial part of programming experience (i.e. learning to weight the cost of rolling your own code for something versus doing contortions to interface an external library, and being able to do so), and there are no books that can teach you that.

[newbiecoder]

Thank you very much for your valuable advices, do you think is it better to jump to coding directly or reading a data structures/algorithms book first? Because my C++ knowledge is basic and I have zero experience..
Thanks a lot again..

[Narue]

Why can't you do both?

[newbiecoder]

Yeah I got it, thanks..

[DestinyChanger]

read the book till have an idea in your mind then code.
code in several ways till you get it well.

[awie10007]

Hi what do we do first is draw a block diagram of your unsolved problem
and solve the block diagram with the applicable language.

Regards
Awie Spengler

[Stefano Mtangoo]

practicing makes perfect!

[awie10007]

Yes the first thing U need to do is print something on the screen then get a input
from the keyboard.
The sample program is Hello World just search C++ hello world and download
it try and find a Project Hello World.

www.hitmill.com/programming/cpp/helloWorld.htm

I am living in China 10 years now and the search should be easier for you.

No "prop" as the Aussies would say call again.

Best Regards

Awie Spengler

[awie10007]

Hi
There is 1000's of samples on Danie Web that's what they do stay here for
a while and search, observe and you will be wise.

Regards
Awie