0.
1 — Introduction to these tutorials
ALEX 1 APRIL 12, 2024
Welcome!
Welcome to the Learn C++ tutorials! Above all else, these tutorials aim to make learning C++ easy.
Unlike many other sites and books, these tutorials don’t assume you have any prior programming
experience. We’ll teach you everything you need to know as you progress, with lots of examples along the
way.
Whether you’re interested in learning C++ as a hobby or for professional development, you’re in the right
place!
A testimonial from reader Syam from Trinidad:
It’s crazy how perfect this website explains C++ concepts and teaches programming. I read
the book “Programming: Principles and Practice Using C++” [by Bjarne Stroustrup, the
creator of C++] and it was rather confusing…. This website makes it clear the first time, and
they explain everything you need to know. Somehow they know what I don’t know, and
what I need to know. It’s almost like my future self went back in the past to teach me what
mistakes I will make.
Lesson structure
The lessons in this introductory chapter are aimed at giving you some context around what C++ is, how it
came about, how programs work, and what software you need to install to create your own programs.
You’ll even write your own first program.
Further chapters will explore different parts of the C++ language. In the first chapter (chapter 1), you’ll get
a broad but shallow overview of many fundamental C++ concepts, so we can start writing some simple
programs. Further chapters will explore those concepts in depth, or introduce new concepts.
Each chapter has a theme, with most of the lessons underneath it being generally related to that theme.
There is no suggested amount of time that you should spend with each lesson or chapter; progress
through the material at a pace that is comfortable for you.
Goals
Before we get started, let’s cover a few important goals for these tutorials:
Cover general programming topics as well as C++. Traditional textbooks do a pretty good job of
teaching the basics of a given programming language, but they often do not cover other
programming topics that are incidental to the language. For example, books will omit sections on
programming style, common pitfalls, debugging, good/bad programming practices, and testing.
Consequently, by the time you finish the book, you may understand how to program in a language,
but you might also have picked up bad habits that will come back to bite you later! One of the goals of
these tutorials is to make sure that all of these incidental topics are covered along the way, in the
sections where it naturally makes sense to discuss them. When you finish, you will not only know how
to program in C++, you will know how NOT to program in C++, which is arguably as important.
Provide a lot of examples. Most people learn as much or more from following the examples as they
do from reading the text. These tutorials will endeavor to provide plenty of clear, concise examples to
show the application of concepts you are learning. We will also avoid (as much as possible) the twin
evils: the ellipsis (also known as …), where a necessary or non-obvious part of an example is omitted
in the interest of space, and the unexplained new concept, where a new concept that is integral to the
example is introduced without any mention of what it is or how it works. Both of these tend to lead to
getting stuck.
Provide practice programs. The end of many lessons and sections will contain some exercises that
you can attempt to answer on your own, along with solutions. You can compare your solution against
ours to see what we did differently, or, if you get stuck, how we solved the problem. Then you can go
back and refocus on the areas you need more work on.
Most importantly: have fun. Programming can be a lot of fun, and if you’re not generally having fun,
you’re not in the right mindset to be programming. Tired or unhappy programmers make mistakes,
and debugging code tends to take much longer than writing it correctly in the first place! Often you
can save yourself some time by going to bed, getting a good night’s sleep, and coming back to a
problem in the morning.
Getting the most out of these tutorials
As you go through these tutorials, we recommend a number of practices to maximize your learning
experience:
Type in the examples by hand and compile them yourself. Do not copy and paste them! This will help
you learn where you commonly make errors, as well as becoming familiar with compiler warnings
and errors. Don’t just transcribe example programs mindlessly -- think about what each of the lines
you are typing in does, and how it contributes to the overall program. If you encounter anything that
you don’t understand, that’s something to investigate further.
As you make mistakes or find bugs in your programs, fix them. Try to solve your own problems before
asking others for help. Learning how to find and fix errors is a critical skill to successful programming.
Don’t neglect learning how to use a debugger (we’ll explain how in a future chapter) -- it’s a key tool in
figuring out where your programs are going wrong.
Experiment with the examples. Change numbers and text to see what happens. Modify the programs
to do additional things (e.g. if a program adds two numbers, make it add three numbers). Try to find
different ways to break the programs (if a program asks you to enter a number, try entering a letter
instead and see what happens). You’ll learn more by modifying the examples than by simply following
them.
Plan to spend some time with the quizzes. If you’re new to programming, you may find these
challenging (and that’s normal, as your brain acclimates to the programming mindset). Don’t be
discouraged if you don’t get the right answer the first time. You may need to try several different
approaches before you find a path to success. It’s okay to look at the answer if you’re really stuck. Just
make sure you understand how the provided answer works before proceeding.
Write your own short programs using the concepts you have learned. This will reinforce your learning
and improve your retention.
()Common site-related questions (#FAQ)2
Q: How do I sign up for the site? How do I get a login?
All parts of this site are accessible anonymously -- therefore, no user account or signup is needed!
Q: Is there a PDF version of this site available for offline viewing?
Unfortunately, there is not. The site is able to stay free for everyone because we’re ad-sponsored --
that model simply doesn’t work in PDF format. You are welcome to convert pages from this website
into PDF (or any other) format for your own private use, so long as you do not distribute them.
Q: What should I do if I get stuck on a concept?
If you don’t understand something or feel stuck:
Read through the comments. Other readers may have encountered similar challenges.
Scan through the next lesson or two in the series -- your question may be answered there.
Use a search engine to see if your question (or error message) has been addressed elsewhere.
Ask an AI to explain something to you. Keep in mind that the information provided by AI may be
fully or partially incorrect.
Ask your question on a site that is designed for programming Q&A, like Stack Overflow3.
If all else fails, skip the material you don’t understand, and come back to it later. You may find that
something that was hard to understand is easier with the additional knowledge and context provided
by other articles.
Q: What do I do if I forget what something means?
Use the Site index (/learn-c-site-index/)4. Look up any topics you want to know more about there, and
you’ll find links to the lessons where that topic is discussed.
Q: Do you have any similar sites for other programming languages?
Nope. Maintaining this site requires a lot of time. Doing other languages would require being able to
clone myself a few times.
Q: Can you do a dark mode for this site?
Not easily, but you can! See darkreader.org (https://darkreader.org/)5.
Finally, one small nag: This site is free because it is ad-supported. If you find yourself enjoying the lessons,
please consider disabling your ad blocker.
Alright, let’s get on with it!
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0.2 Introduction to programming languages
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Links
1. https://www.learncpp.com/author/Alex/
2. https://www.learncpp.com/cpp-tutorial/introduction-to-these-tutorials/#FAQ
3. https://stackoverflow.com/
4. https://www.learncpp.com/learn-c-site-index/
5. https://darkreader.org/
6. https://www.learncpp.com/cpp-tutorial/introduction-to-programming-languages/
7. https://www.learncpp.com/
8. https://www.learncpp.com/cpp-tutorial/introduction-to-these-tutorials/#
9. https://www.learncpp.com/introduction-to-these-tutorials/
10. https://www.learncpp.com/site-news/this-is-a-news-test-post/
