I bought \"Beginning C++ Through Game Programming\" yesterday to start learning

Question

I bought "Beginning C++ Through Game Programming" yesterday to start learning about C++ and programming. I'm going on hour 33, and I can't seem to put this book down. I was talking to a friend who's more experienced, and he suggested that I should now spend my time learning about algorithm design and data structures because languages come and go but in depth knowledge of theory (as in not just knowing about all the different types of algorithms, but being able to create my own) will be everlasting and more beneficial.

I guess what I'm asking is this: Should I focus more on learning more C++ and buying more books or should I instead buy a book on algorithms and focus more on that? (Yes, I know I can do both and I plan to, but I'm asking which should receive more attention)

P.S. - I've been looking into Financial Engineering for college and apparently C++ is the dominant language, but as my friend said, "languages come and go" so would I be wasting my time by trying to master C++?

Explanation / Answer

Really, the two areas need to go hand in hand.

Learning the language well won't help much if you don't know enough about algorithms and data structures to do anything useful with it.

And learning about algorithms and data structures won't help much if you don't know enough about C++ (or whatever language you focus on) to implement that knowledge.

Now, I'm not familiar with "Beginning C++ Through Game Programming", but I had a quick look at the description on Amazon and it certainly sounds like it is intended to teach the C++ language through the medium of teaching you techniques and algorithms for a specific domain - in this case, game programming. So I'd say you're probably on a pretty good track there.

If you were learning from a book which was 100% focused on the C++ language and nothing else, then you might have grounds for some worries about not getting a well-balanced education. Such a book would be more appropriate for someone who already has programming experience in other languages.

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