How did YOU learn C++?

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Long and sordid history. I'm not sure when and where I picked up C (ansi c, not C++, but ansi C was the foundation of C++), but it was sometime back in the 80s.

I avoided C++ when it first came around as it wasn't as robust and developed back then. The vtable system made C++ programs bloated and slow.

As for when I started to truly learn C++ was sometime in the 90s I believe, in a college course(still have my text books). Simple stuff, back then. However, never finished college and remained an enthusiast with the dream of developing a space shooter/MMO.
It kinda just happened when I figured that I didn't want to use Pascal anymore. Various online resources, books etc later I'm at this point. I am definitely not a beginner anymore (at least I don't think so), but there's still so much stuff I don't know about, it's ridiculous.
I had a class of Java at one point, but the level was pretty low (Think my exam was rewriting BubbleSort for ints samplecode to BubbleSort for some class. The rest was GUI stuff).

A few years later, I got into C++ on a purely functional basis. I needed it for my thesis, thus picked up a guide by Microsoft. It was hell and I dropped it after a few pages. Ultimately, I learned most from googling and this website. I just thought out what I wanted to program, wrote it out on paper, then tried to translate it to C++. Luckily for me, most of the code was about control flow and basic operations. The more advanced things I picked up gradually.

If I could go back and help my younger self, I'd give myself the MIT-OCW starter course[1]. It's very basic and concise; a strong contrast to most books.

[1]: http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-computer-science/6-096-introduction-to-c-january-iap-2011/
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