My daughter is in her first programming class in HS. We're looking for a nice, beginner level site to help her get ahead in her class.

Right now, her goal is a "pause" command that doesn't error out...

Any ideas?

-jk

while (1) {}



Computer might get a little warm though.

Really C++?

.NET I would have thought would be the way for PC type programming these days.

http://www.learncpp.com/ looks alright but there seems to be quite a few.

Windows: Sleep(INFINITE); -- https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms686298.aspx
POSIX: sleep(UINT_MAX); -- https://linux.die.net/man/3/sleep -- it's not actually forever, but UINT_MAX seconds should be plenty.

I'm recommending to my son that he learn Python and JavaScript (despite the fact that I hate both of them). .NET (i.e. C#, but look at F#) would be a good alternative. He wants to learn Erlang (like Daddy uses), but that's a bit niche. I suggested Elixir instead.

I didn't read this post as wanting help with pause specifically, but asking for a site to help generally. Something like...

https://javaranch.com/

...but for C.

If my quick googling is accurate: ouch!

-jk

Yeah, C++. thanks for the link!

-jk

Yeah, a little of both - a specific request for a pause command, but a more general C++ site for beginners so she can move on...

thanks, everyone!

-jk

I figure any language she learns as a first will help moving forward. And HS has only the one language.

Once you learn to think programming, the rest is (mostly?) syntax...

-jk

I'm a bit surprised that a high school is teaching C++. The current popular languages for beginners in universities seem to be Java and Python, with Python really becoming the go-to standard. There's just less of it you need to know to start being productive. JavaScript is growing in popularity because it's in every browser everywhere.

In all seriousness, the way to help a true beginner get ahead is to have them learn something other than C or C++. Those language have far too many pitfalls that make it hard to debug. (Example: malloc() returning non-zeroed memory, so you can end up following pointers to weird places and see garbage in your debugger.)

The various MOOCs out there seem to be a good structured way to get from nothing to something and they generally have you do all your coding within the browser.

If you want something slightly more cutting edge, you might have a look at Pyret, which you can think of as a LISP/Scheme-family language with a surface of Python syntax. Everything runs in browser, and they have curriculum materials targeting middle-school kids in math classes. Learn the Pythagorean Theorem while building shoot-em-up videogames!