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In addition to offering a wide variety of commercial compilers at discounted prices, mail-order houses often stock a variety of programming tools that you may never find anywhere else, such as special programming editors, code analyzers, language utilities to make programming easier, copy-protection kits, and installation programs.
The following mail-order houses specialize in programming tools:
Programmer’s Paradise (at www.pparadise.com) offers a variety of programming tools for a variety of languages.
VBXtras (at www.vbxtras.com) specializes in Visual Basic add-ons and programming aids.
Getting Your Hands on Source Code
Because one of the best ways to learn anything is to learn from someone else, many programmers voluntarily share their source code so that others can benefit from their work. The Linux operating system is the ultimate example of people sharing source code.
If you can get the source code to another program, you can include its features in your own program, thus saving you time. Many companies sell programming utilities (such as miniature word processors, spreadsheets, or graphics-charting programs) that you can paste together into your own
programs. As a bonus, some of these companies also include the source code so that you can modify the program for your needs.
You can often find the source code to small programs scattered around the Internet for free. These small programs typically solve simple problems, but one of those problems may prove exactly what you need.
To find source code for your favorite language, use a search engine to search for the string “C source code”. This search string likely turns up a long list of useless Web sites and an occasional useful Web site that offers source code that you can download for free.
To help narrow your search for source code, try visiting one of the following
Web sites:
Code Guru (at www.codeguru.com) offers source code snippets to a variety of popular languages, including C/C++, Visual Basic, and Java.
Planet Source Code (at www.planet-source-code.com) provides Visual Basic and Java source code.
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comp.lang is a general-purpose programming newsgroup.
comp.lang.basic is a newsgroup for BASIC programming enthusiasts.
comp.lang.c is for C programming fanatics and followers.
comp.lang.c++ enables you to learn C++ from this newsgroup.
comp.lang.delphi enables you to band together with other Delphi programmers.
comp.lang.java.help is a great place for getting help with programming and using Java.
comp.lang.pascal covers Pascal programming, including some Delphi programming news and information.
This list is just a short sampling of available programming newsgroups. With a little bit of searching, you can find newsgroups for other programming languages and specific compilers such as Visual Basic, C++Builder, and RealBasic.
Playing Core War
People tend to learn faster and more effectively if they’re having fun (which is a lesson that public schools and copycat book publishers still haven’t figured out yet). Although writing a program that can calculate a second-order differential equation may improve your programming skills, it may also make you think that programming is extremely boring.
So to keep you from getting bored and to show you that programming can actually prove a lot of fun, you can play one of many programming games available for free (or for a nominal price). The purpose of programming games is to help sharpen your programming skills. If you want to win, you must learn to write the smallest, fastest, and most efficient programs — just as in real life.
The granddaddy of all programming games is Core War. In the old days, computers didn’t use floppy or hard disks. Instead, they stored data on a magnetically-charged doughnut-shaped device called core memory or just core for short.
The idea behind Core War is to write a program that you “store” in the core memory of an imaginary mainframe computer. To play Core War, each player must write a program by using a simplified version of assembly language, dubbed Red Code. Each program must search for enemy programs and erase them from the computer’s core memory. The winner is the player whose program is the last surviving program in core memory.