What are good (preferrably free) resources for a C#/Java developer to learn native C/C++? [closed]

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I have quite a bit of experience in writing managed code (namely C#.net and Java), but I've been looking to become fluent in unmanaged C/C++ (as I would like to work on video games when I graduate in a few years). However, as I've been trying to make the transition, I've found that things I would otherwise consider to be absurdely simple in C#/Java to be frustratingly difficult in C/C++ (i.e. getting the length of an array. I will now forever appreciate the ease of the .Length property). So, I'd like to know if anyone has any good (preferrably free, and preferrably online) resources for a managed programmer looking to move to unmanaged code. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

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http://www.horstmann.com/ccj2/ccjapp3.html looked pretty descent. I

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I know this book exists: Pro Visual C++ 2005 for C# Developers. Taking a peek at the table of contents, it looks like both unmanaged c++ and c++/cli are covered; so I assume your pain points will be covered in the unmanaged sections of the book.

Sorry though, it's not free.

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I'll just leave this here: The Definitive C++ Book Guide and List. This isn't a free resource list, but it's generally recommended to learn C++ with a real book, you'll get one sooner or later anyways.

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I'm more of an experimental learner, so I would recommend something like trying to write some mods with the half life 2 source engine. There is a lot of documentation there and a decent sized community around it for when you run into trouble.

Also - before diving in, I would look into how garbage collectors work; because it is going to be up to you to do the garbage collector's job now that you won't be in a managed environment. Spend some time researching this; because most of the other differences between managed environments will become clear as you code; but the lack of a garbage collector isn't so clear and could lead to you writing code which looks ok but runs like crap.

Another thing you should be looking into is stl. You can find a lot of documentation on that at cplusplus.com. Also, here is a short; but concise tutorial on c++.

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The Getting Started section of the Visual C++ Developer Center might have some useful content but it isn't specifically aimed at managed code programmers so you'll have to wade through stuff you already know.