C++ tutorial: general

Who, what, why?
This tutorial is designed to accompany the course BIS4221: software engineering and software management, and is intended to assist those students that have absolutely no experience of computer programming. It may also be of benefit to students that have some programming experience, but using languages other than C/C++.

What is 'C/C++'?
'C' and 'C++' are both computer programming languages in widespread use. In simple terms, C++ is an extension to C. However, as this course will not make that much use of the extended features of C++, I refer to it as a 'C/C++' course, to indicate that it is based on standard C, with elements of C++. This course uses C++ elements when they are simpler or more logical than corresponding C features. For example, the C++ 'cout' and 'cin' mechanisms for doing simple screen output and keyboard input are more logical that the equivalent C 'printf' and 'scanf' functions. They are also less likely to fail because of trivial errors in the program.

Typographic conventions
There are a number of C++ programs used in this tutorial. You can download these and try them with your favourite C++ compiler. When C++ programs are displayed in these pages I have colour-coded them for ease of reading. The colours mean nothing to the computer, and are for the benefit of the reader.