Hey Everybody!

I just graduated from college with a computer Information science degree and I've always had the desire to get involved in Open Source software development projects.

Even though I've had classes, I don't have a real world experience programming in C/C++. I was wondering how I can become a unix/linux C/C++ programmer.

- Can you give me some tips how I can get started?
- Is there a place where I can download different intermediate C/C++ programms to review, compile, and modify codes?
- What projects do you recommend me to get involved in?

Please...fill me in with any type of information you may think I could benefit from!

Sincerely,


Peaceofcrap2001

A lot of the projects on sourceforge could benefit immensely from an interested programmer, and many are accepting all the help they can get their hands on. The programming forums here are good practice also...if you see a post and don't know how to answer the question, look it up even if you don't answer the post.

The best thing to do really is find something that you think it would be neat to do, even if you don't think you would know where to start, and then try to do it. You'll almost always learn something .

Also - topcoder. I don't know if you had to do it for classes (I did) but it's sort of a fun place to just sit down and code.

I agree. http://www.sourceforge.net is an excellent site, and also http://www.kde-apps.org/, http://www.kdevelop.org/, and http://gcc.gnu.org/. First thing you should do is get a decent Linux and/or BSD distro and some books to learn the systems really well (how they work, what they have in common, how they are different). The big things you need to learn are the shells, standard tools, gcc, gmake, the POSIX/Linux libs, and of course the area that you plan to focus on. Once you get the functionality down then you can worry about the formalities of install directories, etc. You should also decide if you would rather work alone or with a team. I personnally work better alone, but if you are going to work on a team for a large project then you should learn the ins and outs of the project first. If you work alone (IMHO) you don't need to follow a formal style (as you can see by my code I don't) as long as you can explain what you are doing and why you are doing it.
ta0kira

Thank you!

I will do as you have advised. I looked at the positions for developers on www.sf.net and most of them require at least 6 months of experience in a particular language. Anyways, I will try what I can!

Sincerely,

Peaceofcrap

PS: if others have any more advice, I will be checking this forum frequently!

I am in the same position, except i am going to uni in september.

I've been using linux for about two or three years now. Pretty recently i bought two Linux programming books.

Linux application development - by Michael K Johnson & Eric W Troan.
Beginning Linux Programming - By Neil Mathew & Richard Stones.

Beginning Linux Programming is probably the better out of the two because it starts as if you have had no experience with linux at all. In my opinion Linux application is rather a reference book than anything else.

If you are interested in network programming I'd recommend you buy-
Linux Network programming - by Kier Davis, John W Turner & Nathan Yocom.

The book itself isn't very thick, but explains what sockets are and how to use them by taking you through examples. I'm about half way through the book and to me it seems brilliant as i had never touched sockets before.

Good Luck Buddy.
Pthug

You also need to learn the licenses so that you know in what ways you can use others' code. This is VERY important. Take a look at http://www.opensource.org/licenses/.
ta0kira

If you need any opensource softwares http://freshmeat.net/ will be useful

Forgot about that one. I liked it better when it was just Dave Central...
ta0kira