As I wrote here, I’m using Microsoft’s free Visual C++ Express edition (2005) for my home C/C++ coding. Today I reinstalled VC++ on my computer, and found the links that explain how to integrate the platform SDK into it not functioning. So I want to summarize what to do here, for posterity’s sake.  

C is not an easy language to parse. A cursory glance at its BNF grammar should convince anyone immediately. One of the hairiest parts of the grammar is type declarations. The creators of C, Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie, admit it themselves in the beginning of section 5.12 of K&R2 (“The C programming language 2nd Ed”):

Arguments passed by value and by reference. Until now, in all the functions we have seen, the arguments passed to the functions have been passed by value. This means that when calling a function with parameters, what we have passed to the function were copies of their values but never the variables themselves. For example, suppose that we called our first function addition using the following code: int x=5, y=3, z; z = addition ( x , y ); What we did in this case was to call to function addition passing the values of x and y, i.e. 5 and 3 respectively, but not the variables x and y themselves.

Using functions we can structure our programs in a more modular way, accessing all the potential that structured programming can offer to us in C++. A function is a group of statements that is executed when it is called from some point of the program. The following is its format: type name ( parameter1, parameter2, ...) { statements } where: type is the data type specifier of the data returned by the function. name is the identifier by which it will be possible to call the function. parameters (as many as needed): Each parameter consists of a data type specifier followed by an identifier, like any regular variable declaration (for example: int x) and which acts within the function as a regular local variable. They allow to pass arguments to the function when it is called. The different parameters are separated by commas. statements is the function's body. It is a block of statements surrounded by braces

C is a general-purpose computer programming language developed in 1972 by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories. Though ‘C’ was initially designed as a system implementation language, it is also widely used for applications. C Language has also greatly influenced many other popular languages such as C++ which was originally designed as an extension of C. C++ is a general purpose programming language and is regarded as a mid-level language, since it comprises both high-level and low-level languages. C++ was developed by Dr. Bjarne Stroustrup in 1979 at Bell Labs as an enhancement to the programming language C. C is therefore useful for many applications that have been coded in assembly language.

{mos_sb_discuss:31} Object oriented programming is a great, great boon to productivity when it is used correctly.  In my mind, the most powerful feature of OOP is inheritance and the ability to build on existing code bases to change behaviors without reinventing the wheel.

{mos_sb_discuss:31} Since C++ is based on C, you must be familiar with the syntax of C in order to program in C++, just as you must be reasonably fluent in algebra in order to tackle calculus.

{mos_sb_discuss:31} While browsing my favorite programming news site programming.reddit.com links I stumbled accorss this link to a video lecture on C++ upcoming standard C++0x by no one else than Bjarne Stroustrup himself! You can start watching it right away or you can download it in DivX, MPEG and other formats. I have a great interest in the C and C++ family of programming languages and their history, and I have read two of Bjarne’s books - C++ Programming Language and The Design and Evolution of C++. I enjoyed every page of these books and they made me not only a decent C++ programmer but also made me understand how the language was formed, what it’s goals were, where it was headed and how the language got various constructs it has now. If you ever consider becoming a great C++ programmer, these books are a definite read.

{mos_sb_discuss:31}  Keywords are words used for special purposes. You must not use these words as names of objects in your programs. The following is a list of Visual C++ keywords:

{mos_sb_discuss:31} The fundamental parts of Visual C++, provided as part of the IDE, are the editor, the compiler,the linker and the libraries. These are the basic tools that are essential to writing and executing a C++ program. Their functions are as follows: