From owner-freebsd-questions Sat Jul 1 0:29: 6 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from csimo01.mx.cs.com (csimo01.mx.cs.com [152.163.225.74]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A4D4137B8E7 for ; Sat, 1 Jul 2000 00:29:02 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from TEWisdom@cs.com) Received: from TEWisdom@cs.com by csimo01.mx.cs.com (mail_out_v27.10.) id n.73.4a8f626 (3896) for ; Sat, 1 Jul 2000 03:28:57 -0400 (EDT) From: TEWisdom@cs.com Message-ID: <73.4a8f626.268ef7b9@cs.com> Date: Sat, 1 Jul 2000 03:28:57 EDT Subject: Hi! Bunch of newbie questions To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: CompuServe 2000 32-bit sub 105 Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG To introduce myself, I'm a total newbie with no knowledge of UNIX, FreeBSD, servers, and compilers other than the fact that such things exist. My only programming experience involves a dos/Basic (not visual basic, not even Qbasic, BASIC) course I took 8 years ago. (when I was 13, no less--long story.) Despite this, I'm trying to learn about all of these things. So if I aggravate y'all with my ignorance, be gentle. I'm trying to make my own website. So, I began by learning HTML. Except, it seems, to do all the really cool stuff I need to learn coding languages such as CGI, ASP, PHP4, Java, JavaScript, Perl. . . the list is endless. Plus everywhere I look someone's offering "developer's tools" that cost an arm and a leg. Then I learn that not all webservers will accept such things anyway, and that every browser has different requrements themselves. to add insult to injury, all of the tutorials on the above I find are written for someone who already KNOWS how to code in another language, usually c/c++. So, going one step further, I start researching c/c++. The first thing GOOGLE leads me to are a whole bunch of things called "compilers." From what I gather, a "compiler" is something that turns readable typing (albeit barely readble, unless you know the language) into machine language. Cool. The problem is, there's not one, not a dozen, but a practically endless list of these compilers, each a variation of C, each extolling its particular virtues. Some are free, not are definitely NOT free, and all of them are described in language that anyone unfamiliar with C/C++ would not understand. Namely, me. Moving on, these languages, I find, are designed for unix. What's UNIX??!! I look into unix. Unix, it seems, is an old OS (wowee, I now know what OS stands for!!) developed in the 70's, and has a whole bunch of variants--Linux, Solaris, FreeBSD. . . Which lead me here. Now for the questions: *Where's a good mailing list or newsgroup to start asking stupid questions about C/C++? *Can I install FreeBSD on my computer, and switch back and forth between it and Windows when I need to? How would this be done? *Do I need to install a UNIX platform, such as Free BSD, to use a C/C++ compiler? If not, how would I use such a thing on Windows? *Of these different compilers, can someone tell me what good (free) c++ variant they might reccommend? I hear that Borland is really easy to use (from the Borland website, so I take this with a grain of salt), is there a free variant that is as easy? *Are there any good, free tutorials written for newbies (on any or all of the subjects above, 'cept for HTML--I've got that one licked) that I might be able to use? (I already know 'bout the ones on the FreeBSD site, and I'm looking through them) Thanks. Oh, BTW, since I'm mailing this through a link I found on the FreeBSD webpage, and not through a subscription to the mailing list, please mail direct to my personal box, not the list--and CC the list, if you want everyone else to see your message. Thanks again. --Tiberius (Ty) Wisdom TEWisdom@CS.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message