Section 1 - Welcome

1A.1.1 C++

C++ has always been an important computer programming language, but it has seen a resurgence in recent years because of its prominence in games development and 3-D real-time simulation.  We will learn a lot about C++ and software development in the next few weeks, but for those of you who are new to computer programming, let's begin at the beginning.

Programming is the science and art of making computers perform useful, entertaining, and sometimes destructive  tasks.

To write a program you must start with a computer language, and one of the most powerful languages today is C++.   There are, of course, others such as Java, Python, C#,  and Perl, and each has its strengths and applications. So why learn C++?  For one thing, it's a versatile language that can be used on a variety of platforms.  Also, it's been around for a long time, which means there are billions of lines of code that need to be updated and maintained, and that requires C++ programmers.  And you may be surprised to learn that C++ is still the language of choice for many 3D simulation and visual game developers because of its execution speed.

By the end of this course you'll be able to say that you're a computer programmer -- a C++ programmer, in particular.  Of course, you won't know everything there is to know about C++ by a long shot, but you will be able to do many things with the language, and you'll be able to converse intelligently about computer programming.

Like all programming languages, C++ has evolved since it was first introduced.  The current international standard is called ANSI C++, and there are popular extensions to ANSI C++ including Microsoft's .NET C++ as well as Apple's Xcode or the open source Eclipse for C++ Developers.

If you followed the instructions included in the module Obtaining Compilers. you have everything you need to write and run C++ programs in any of these environments.  In about one or two hours from now, you will have written and executed your first C++ program.