Need some basics

[John E. Barham]

"L. B." wrote:

> I'm quite a newbie in programming and i'm soon getting tired of the VB
> crap (and that's why i'm learning Python)... i'd like, someday, to
> define myself a programmer, but i feel i'm missing some valuable
> basics of computer science: algorithms, data-structures, software
> engeenering... and when thinking about making even a simple game (like
> tic-tac-toe) i found myself screaming just for thinking how it should
> be done.
>
> So here is the question... assuming that i'm too old (26) for going
> back to college and study something else that Politics and Economics
> which doesn't seem to be anything computer-related ;-) which book
> should i study, which books shouldn't miss from a serious programmer's
> bookshelf?

I'd suggest becoming familiar with the Standard C++ STL ("Standard Template
Library") to get a handle on the most common and important data structures
and algorithms.  The STL also specifies runtime complexity guarantees.

The SGI STL implementation (http://www.sgi.com/tech/stl/) was developed in
part by Alex Stepanov, the inventor of the STL, and includes excellent
documentation.

Note that the STL vector and (not yet standard) hash_map containers are
roughly equivalent to Python lists and dictionaries, respectively.

    John