An average educated adult can become familiar with C++ or any common programming language in a few months of dedicated study, a year to become reasonably proficient, and several years to become adept and versatile.

Offhand I would suggest starting at cplusplus.com

Read the Information section, and read the tutorial.

If you want an even more simplified and elementary progression, this Java tutorial is nice.

http://chortle.ccsu.edu/java5/index.html...

For getting started, Java and C++ are similar enough to get a basic understanding of either one.

An IDE such as Eclipse or Xcode should make things easier, since you don't have to worry too much about compiler settings and flags. You should be able to start one up and just begin coding.

Yes, programmers are sometimes bad at teaching fundamentals because they are trained to communicate in tech-speak, and they don't have the patience to dumb things down and explain every simple detail of a concept.

learning to code has certainly been something a lot of people have started to do lately. And while being a programmer might not be for everyone, there is a lot to be said about gaining a better, more educated view of how all those pixels get moved around all those screens.

you can watch these videos

https://buckysroom.org/videos.php?cat=16

http://xoax.net/cpp/crs/console/index.ph...

and read this

http://www.tutorialspoint.com/cplusplus/...

"Is two years enough for becoming familiar with this language?"

yes, easily

if you practice 3 to 5 times a week then you should be able to cover C++, connecting to a database

http://www.sqlite.org/c3ref/intro.html

and other advanced topics

the guy in the video series uses codeblocks

you can download codeblocks form here

http://www.codeblocks.org/downloads/bina...

get the one named

codeblocks-13.12mingw-setup.exe

or get

MS Visual C++ 2010 Express

http://www.visualstudio.com/downloads/do...

or

Microsoft Visual Studio Express 2013 for Windows Desktop

http://www.visualstudio.com/downloads/do...

all of those are free

I am 24 years old and finishing my MBA studies. I have decided to expand my skill set and dedicate next two years to learning the basics of C++ and maybe later SQL. The problem is, books I tried to go through (books advertised as material for total beginners) give me a hard time. Authors assume I can magically know which IDE to get, how to attach a file to a C++ project in order to insert the code and how to compile the example I have created (not even close to figuring this one out, since IDE "getting started" material does cover these basics). Are programmers really that bad at teaching other people or am I supposed to know all of this by default? Which source of learning do you suggest? Where should I get started? Is two years enough for becoming familiar with this language?