   What to do?$$
  Hi people,I''d like to learn Visual C++ and DirectX more deeply ( I''ve only seen them in college )... I''d like to use these at home and make my own programs with them, but there''s a problem...I have no money to buy Visual C++ (now .NET 2003) nor DirectX, so, what should I do?Do you recommend for me to learn OpenGL instead (freeware) ?How can we work in programming to earn our money, if we haven''t got the money to learn it in the first place? This has been a dilemma for me..Thanks people  
  directx is free and get devc++ its a free compiler just as good ;  I could say learn OpenGL, but my opinion is biased. I only know OpenGL.If you want to learn Visual C++ then you have no option but to pay for it (unless there are special license programs for students). But when you want to code in C++ in general for Windows then there are plenty of alternative IDE''s. Like bloodshed. ;  Visual C++ IS an IDE not a language,.NET on the other hand has regular c++ and the .NET thing. ;quote:Original post by MPG  Visual C++ IS an IDE not a language,.NET on the other hand has regular c++ and the .NET thing.   I know. But with Visual C++ you can drag and drop buttons, textfields, etc. With learning VC++ I mean learning to code the events for the userinterface widgets, and learning the widgets in general.And I don''t think there is an IDE with the same widgets and stuff like VC++ has for free. (correct me if I am wrong) ;  If you want to make interfaces in general... I recommend FLTK... it has a visual interface designer called FLUID, which is extremely powerful. It is also cross platform. I use FLTK/FLUID for my dialog type objects.. and SDL for my 2D/3D/sounds/network/IO stuff... all in Dev C++ (both packages are available via the "update" option in the IDE). These 3 packages between them give you a visual interface developper... an excellent C++ compiler (mingw provided with dev C++) and a cross platform multimedia library. I would say that (IMHO) this is an ideal combination for many people who need crossplatform support, and are developping non commercial applications (not sure about commercial uses, so I won't comment on that). For me, this combination works perfectly .EDIT: Just a qualification on my comments about 3D... SDL does not in itself support 3D graphics, but rather provides a set of tools to open a window with whatever buffers you need (for 3D) and a set of cross platform tools to obtain info pertaining to extensions etc... The actual 3D is all done via OpenGL (in itself a well supported cross platform API... as opposed to D3D, being windows only).   [edited by - dmounty on February 15, 2004 7:20:21 PM];  >> How can we work in programming to earn our money, if we haven''t got the money to learn it in the first place? This has been a dilemma for me..<<This is a non-problem since there are tons of free tools out there that you could use to write doom5 if you wanted to. The whole linux dev thing is free. Gcc, stlport, anjuta, kdevelop, etc. there are too many compilers and tools around as it is. ID software to my knowledge use stlport and gtk+. I think they used djgpp back in quake days. Where there is will there is a way;  Just a point, Direct X doesnt cost anything either...(personally i prefer it over openGL but many dont...) ;  If you want to program with premium tools stop whining about the price, get yourself a part time job or something and earn the cash to buy em. It''s not that hard. Or you can use a wealth of free software out there that in many cases is just as good (or close) as the real thing. ;  MinGW (Minimal UNIX environment and GNU compiler for Windows)OpenGLwxWindows (free cross-platform C++ GUI framework)Install MSYS, then MinGW, then wxWindows (need to configure/build this one).  wxWindows comes with OpenGL samples that you can cut/paste/hack to create your own application.   --Dave Mikesell Software