LearnCPP: Website devoted to teaching you how to program in C++

https://www.learncpp.com/

by signa11 • 4 years ago

298 117 4 years ago

As a Java dev who learned C++ at university the hate towards C++ is misplaced.

C++ is a no thrills language which lets you have freedom but freedom to also shoot yourself in the foot 100+n ways, but this gives you a good foundation as a developer IMHO.

Every time I think about garbage collection in Java, I can appreciate that I am not having to write code to destruct an object or worry about passing references incorrectly.

trinovantes• 4 years ago

I haven't used Java since school so I'm curious about modern Java. Do you need to worry about circular references preventing garbage collection or are there easy tools to detect such cases?

ponow• 4 years ago

Java will collect sets of objects with circular references: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1910194/how-does-java-ga...

umanwizard• 4 years ago

Circular references have never prevented garbage collection in any version of Java AFAIK.

einpoklum5• 4 years ago

For Java'eans, here's an interesting StackOverflow question about why there's no Garbage Collector in C++ and what it means:

https://stackoverflow.com/q/147130/1593077

and my particular answer:

https://stackoverflow.com/a/48046118/1593077

in essence, with Modern C++, it is relatively easy to just not produce garbage which needs to be collected :-)

thom2• 4 years ago

I've been getting back into C++ after an extremely long hiatus and I've been impressed by how thoroughly modern it is. The worst crime you're likely to commit these days is accidentally invoking a copy constructor more often than you want to, and even then, not actually creating leaks.

In fact, the most striking thing coming from a language like Java or C# isn't memory management at all, is how utterly non-OO C++ actually is, especially the standard library. I understand how key the zero-cost tenet is in C++, but it's very alien to be picturing an interface and thinking you'd like an Iterable<char> or IEnumerable<char> there, but having to learn about iterators and traits and concepts etc. To be honest, there are equally many functional affordances in C++ as OO ones at this point, but the native core is generic programming, which is very idiosyncratic.

ape4• 4 years ago

I switched from C++ to Java too. Still, every time I type `new MyObject()` without a corresponding `delete` I feel like I got away with some sort of crime ;)

zabzonk6• 4 years ago

in c++ you probably never want to write 'new MyObject()' at all. perhaps you didn't learn c++ from a good book?

nashashmi• 4 years ago

I used to use this resource back in 2008. It really cleared up lots of basic information on memory allocation and heap overflow.

optimalsolver2• 4 years ago

After many headaches trying to get Numba to work with Python, I decided to just go out and learn C++.

This was my main resource and can highly recommend.

einpoklum5• 4 years ago

As a C++-head with little experience in Python - I would ask you to elaborate a little. What were trying to achieve with Numba, that gave you headaches?

optimalsolver2• 4 years ago

Symbolic regression which involves a ton of CPU-intensive mathematical operations, but Numba is very picky on what it will or won't optimize.

TillE• 4 years ago

This is essentially why C++ is here to stay. I've wasted a lot of time fiddling with bindings despite knowing C++, and ultimately the best answer is to just do most of your work in C++, and write application-specific bindings for Python/Lua/whatever if you really need to.

spaniard892773• 4 years ago

As a newbie into programming, I get pulled all the time by people to learn my first compiled language either in C++ or Rust. Every time I ask even the most innocent question in any forum it becomes a shitshow, and I can see, I'm late to the party here in HN.

mk89• 4 years ago

Learn whatever you really want to. They are just 2 tools, and either of them will teach you something. You can't make any mistake, if your plan is to learn and maybe build something simple. If you want career advice, that's where things might get a little bit religious...

boppo13• 4 years ago

I'm just a little further down the road than you are and the best course seems to be to learn a little C++ first because it will help inform why Rust works as it does. Then when you try Rust, if you hate it, you've still got C++.

aliqot2• 4 years ago

We'll be waiting for you on the Zig side :>

Klonoar• 4 years ago

I used to agree with this, but I would actually now suggest doing the inverse.

Rust will beat you over the head with a way of thinking that carries nicely back to C++, and the tooling (Cargo, etc) is more comparable to what someone coming from another language ecosystem would know. Smaller things like Rust's decent support for functional programming seems to click with everyone I know who's dabbling from the JS world.

HideousKojima• 4 years ago

Personally I'd say that unless you're going into game dev where C++ is still widely used (or you want to work on legacy codebases that are in C++), learn Rust instead. Or even learn C rather than C++. C++ has a huge gap between the modern and proper way to do things and the old footgun-riddled way of doing things, and it's just a mess.

yeputons4• 4 years ago

Please do not start with either C++ or C. They are horrible, horrible languages to learn as a beginner. Not because of bad tooling, incompatible compilers, tons of features, or even manual memory management and pointers, no.

Two words: undefined behavior. In other languages, if you do a mistake, something fails around the place where you did it, or at least afterwards, or at least you can reason why the failure is exactly where it is. In C++, you cannot. Accidental array bounds overflow? Too bad, now your program crashes in a completely unrelated closing bracket (not even a statement) five minutes later.

In other languages, if your program does not crash and produces a correct answer until point X, you can be more or less sure that everything afterwards at least gets corrects inputs. Not in C or C++: if there was an UB before point X, the program may look like it does random things: some stuff is printing, some stuff is shown in the debugger, random lines are executed, arithmetic operations make no sense, perfectly valid functions crash: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/54120862/does-the-c-stan...

blub2• 4 years ago

People grow by challenging themselves and this certainly applies to programming. One can’t use training wheels and expect to become skilled at system programming.

I learned C++ as an absolute beginner in school back when most memory debugging tools didn’t even exist. Undefined behavior was just another bug that one learned to fix and most of the time it was nothing more exciting than a crash. Being disciplined avoided the problem in the first place…

People really have a tendency to dramatize C++. Yes, memory errors are a significant problem for people writing operating systems or browsers that get attacked all the time. For a beginner C++ can be much more fun and instructive than any so-called safe alternative.

leni5364• 4 years ago

Tooling did help this situation somewhat, but it is not very discoverable.

If a beginner started off with a clang or gcc toolchain, then I would immediately suggest the following command line options for the compiler (the exact standard version does not matter, just stick to one):

  -std=c++20 -pedantic-errors -Wall -Wextra -fsanitize=address,undefined

And there are a few toolchain specific macros worth adding.

This would help with most undefined behaviors encountered as a beginner, although the sanitizers don't catch everything.

eyegor2• 4 years ago

If you're really new, I'd say either python or c# (unless you have a goal in mind). C++ and rust are both a lot more difficult to learn if you don't have any background imo. The scoping and memory management rules will distract you from learning the basics. Something like python with jupyter notebooks is pretty much perfect for learning or putting together quick projects, and c# to me feels like a more forgiving c++ with a less crufty stdlib.

Plus rusts strict memory management rules don't really translate to other languages, and c++ has a habit of changing wildly. The c++ of 10 years ago barely looks the same whereas python and c# feel less like the goalposts are moving.

spaniard892773• 4 years ago

I'm already fairly deep into python, kinda knowledgeable in JS to make some minor stuff and currently I'm practicing a lot with git. After than it comes Java (i'm following a self-paced bootcamp path).

Java seems interesting from an employment perspective, but the small stuff I've touched seems extremely verbose. I feel like I have to write and think way more to do simple stuff. But I just had a brief introduction, I guess I can get used to it.

I wanted a compiled language that allows me to tackle some interests I have, and I feel It will be c/c++ wether I like or not, because one of my interests is fiddling with hardware. Nim can compile down do C apparently but it isn't widely adopted.

blub2• 4 years ago

Most Rust stuff is just rewrites, crypto or some specific tool that some corporation or start-up needs.

C++ is one of those languages that people write anything and everything in. Whatever you need, whatever you’re curious about, it’s likely out there.

As for what it feels like, if you want safe but boring, go with Rust. If you want exciting go with C++.

Personally I’d never start with Rust, it’s like biking everywhere with training wheels.

aldanor• 4 years ago

Thanks for the laugh :)

einpoklum5• 4 years ago

The website sometimes fudges things with somewhat-incorrect statements. Maybe it's a minor issue, but I noticed that it says, for example:

When an initializer is provided after an equals sign, this is called copy
initialization. Copy initialization was inherited from the C language.
int width = 5; // copy initialization of value 5 into variable width

That's not quite right. Consider the following program:

    #include <iostream>

    struct A {
        A (const A& other) : x{other.x} { std::cout << "Copy ctor\n" ;}
        A (A&& other) : x{other.x} { std::cout << "Move ctor\n" ;}
        A() : x{0}  { std::cout << "Default ctor\n" ;}
        A(int x_) : x{x_}  { std::cout << "int ctor\n" ;}
        A& operator=(const A& other) { x = other.x; std::cout << "Copy assignment\n" ; return *this; }
        A& operator=(A&& other) { x = other.x; std::cout << "Move assignment\n" ; return *this; }
        int x;
    };

    int main() { A a1 = A(5); }

The constructor used here will not be the copy constructor. There will be just a single construction, of a1, and it will be the "int ctor", i.e. `A(int x_)`.

See it on GodBolt : https://godbolt.org/z/eT8soWMxE

I don't know if this characterizes other parts of LearnCPP, haven't gone through it myself.

thom2• 4 years ago

If you really want to embrace the horror:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tH0Z2OvHAd8

jdrek12• 4 years ago

Copy initialization does not mean that the copy constructor is called. It is the correct term for an expression `T a = ...;`, which can often result in the copy constructor being called but does not have to. In this case it's mandatory copy elision from a prvalue, which leads to only one constructor being called.

einpoklum5• 4 years ago

You are absolutely correct. It turns out "copy initialization is the formal term used. It's kind of stupid IMHO, since it may not be initialization by copying or using a copy of anything, but:

https://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/language/copy_initializati...

So I half-take-back my comment.

mh-cx• 4 years ago

If you already know a programming language and prefer a more concise tutorial you might also like this site:

https://cplusplus.com/doc/tutorial/

It's way less verbose and more to the point.

toppy• 4 years ago

Or in even more concise way here: https://learnxinyminutes.com/docs/c++/

iLoveOncall2• 4 years ago

I haven't done any C++ since 2015ish but your link seems incredibly outdated.

Sure you'll learn some C++ syntax, but you'll learn the C++ from 20 years ago, not the modern C++ with smart pointers and all that stuff which is basically turning it into a new language.

boppo13• 4 years ago

Is it a bad idea to learn from Stroustrup's 'Principles'?

jdrek12• 4 years ago

You should absolutely not use or recommend that site. It's stuck on incomplete C++14 at best and also contains some pretty bad code. learncpp.com is a much better tutorial and cppreference.com is a much better reference. The only thing cplusplus.com is good at is polluting search results.

danbolt• 4 years ago

cppreference has a steep learning curve with how information dense it looks, but once you’re up to speed you can move a lot faster with the standard library. I find it’s the site I always have a tab open on.

AussieWog93• 4 years ago

Back when I was a software engineer, I used to constantly hear how bad cplusplus was. Yet, in spite of this, I'd fairly often find myself using it because the results were just so much easier to parse.

Just as an example, cppreference doesn't have a page dedicated to std::string (when you search for it on Google, it tkes you to std::basic_string) whereas cplusplus does.

Even comparing the two pages, cplusplus immediately gets to the point that std::string is just a std::basic_string<char>, whereas cppreference has three paragraphs of technical minutiae before it finally points out what std::string is.

Even though cplusplus is out of date and incomplete, it's still often more useful than cppreference when you're trying to get your head around STL for the first time.

Karsteski• 4 years ago

This website gave me a strong start to my developer career!

oeitho2• 4 years ago

The cookie popup is truly annoying though. There's no way that this website is in any form of compliance with GDPR...

nonethewiser• 4 years ago

There's no way that this website is in any form of compliance with GDPR...

Doesnt seem like it needs to be

oeitho2• 4 years ago

In what way? GDPR applies regardless of what country the page is served from as long as it offers any product or service to EU inhabitants.

wirthjason• 4 years ago

I wish there was a good place to learn “the other parts” of C++, the build systems, using static analyzers, testing, dependency management, etc.

I’m thinking something like MIT’s “missing semester” course which teaches the boots on the ground part of software like how to use Git.

https://missing.csail.mit.edu/

Maybe these resources exist for C++ and I just never found them.

I think a lot of “modern” languages get this right by including these things from the start. The experience is so much better.

galangalalgol6• 4 years ago

For the build system, I like: http://cliutils.gitlab.io/modern-cmake/

In addition to building, it will show how to add cppcheck and clang-tidy to your cmake files. That part is pretty easy. Just don't turn on every check in clang-tidy. Many of them are for specific code bases. Modernization checks are my favorite ones. Keeps you doing stuff the modern way.

My link has you doing dependency management with git submodules. That is a method still in use and even advocated for, but conan is often touted as the more modern way to do it. I've used it on some teams, and I'm undecided. I also have no good resources for it.

geokon3• 4 years ago

It's been quite a few years since I've really written any C++ and I'm surprised the landscape hasn't evolved at all. People are making the same mistakes...

Modern CMake should be using toolchain files to specify the toolchain/flags. That should be included in ever CMake intro. (Hacking those into your CMakeLists.txt is not okay)

gitsubmodules are also a hack

1: Many dependencies are not setup to be used as a CMake subdirectory. Variables such as the project-version-number get overwritten by the parent project and more dangerously the submodule can start to change variables in the overall project.

2: Dependencies will often reuse target names. For instance, libraries often have a target called `uninstall`. Because redeclaring a target in a different subdirectory is a no-no - CMake crashes

Proper dependency management can be done directly through CMake without repeating yourself by using Hunter: https://hunter.readthedocs.io/

This solved the diamond problem, gives you proper namespaces in CMake and with Polly you can have sane toolchain files (https://github.com/ruslo/polly - but you can also just write them manually). Everything is built on CMake and Git (and git hashes). You get nice dependency build caches and forking dependencies is also trivial

EDIT: The creator of Hunter has his own CMake Intro. I haven't gone through it while-learning, but it looks comprehensive and informative: https://cgold.readthedocs.io/en/latest/

dongping2• 4 years ago

Honestly, I find the usage of the adjective "modern" deceptive and insincere in the marketing term "Modern CMake". The "modern" scripting language doesn't even support return values and the variables lack basic type-safety. It breaks for anything beyond a simple Hello World.

I would recommend any other C++ build tools that use a proper programming language for scripting, be it Meson or Bazel.

Decabytes• 4 years ago

I feel the same way. I remember in one of my failed attempts to learn C++ I had been at it for a few weeks, and was excited to start my own little project in it. I needed to use a piece of software on GitHub and I just could not figure out how to get everything to build. It was a terrible experience that put me off the language.

eloisius• 4 years ago

Pulling in dependencies in C++ when you come from something like Python or Ruby is the absolute worst. I just recently fought through a big mess of this, the gist of it is ExternalProject[1]

1 https://cmake.org/cmake/help/latest/module/ExternalProject.h...

williamvds• 4 years ago

This is a good idea. Most modern languages have their own build tool which handle most of these things, so this requires some separate learning with C++.

Some ideas for a curriculum:

Context

- C++ as a standard, compilers as implementations

- a build tool's role in handling compilation and linking

- compilers having limited abilities, having limited warnings and analysis by default

Build tools

- evolution: e.g. make -> autotools, cmake, meson

- focus on meson as the build tool of choice (personally I'd avoid CMake since it has a lot of legacy baggage)

Testing

- gtest/gmock

- catch

- designing for testing

Analysis tools

- why you should care: security, catching bugs

- cranking up built-in compiler warnings to reasonable standards

- external tools like clang-tidy, cppcheck

- sanitizers: address sanitizer, leak, thread, etc.

- fuzzing

Dependency management (probably the toughest, since it's still a mess)

- history: usually just relying on system packages, or installing libraries globally from source

- Conan (probably the best option for simple dependencies that's actually catching on)

- CMake external projects, Git submodules

- Docker

- Nix (if you're feeling adventurous)

bluGill• 4 years ago

Having build tools in the language is a negative if you have more than one language in your project has two build tools.

Sure it is easier for simple projects, but C++ is not for simple projects.

MakisH2• 4 years ago

In a C++ course we teach at the Technical University of Munich (for students coming from a non-CS background), this is pretty much the direction we have recently steered the curriculum. It is amazing how we were always expected to "just figure out" all these very important practical aspects by ourselves as students, while these are so complicated for C++. In combination with a lot of outdated material out there, students end up feeling lost and giving up, or going through a lot of pain to develop even simple projects.

scoutt• 4 years ago

I think a lot of “modern” languages get this right by including these things from the start. The experience is so much better.

I don't know how others did it, but I learned with MS Visual C++ in 1996.

File -> New Project -> press F7 to compile, F5 to debug. That's it. ~30 years ago they got it right. I even remember my Windows CE experience ~15 years ago that allowed to build and debug the entire OS from an IDE.

Now you have to open your command line and write like it's 1985.

Today VS is free (Visual Studio Express?), with analyzers, tests, vcpkg, etc. There is also Qt and other similar tools that I use for embedded like Keil, IAR, Eclipse derivates, etc.

C++ != Makefiles. I don't write Makefiles or fiddle with the build system since... ever?. Except for some AOSP stuff that still uses them or perhaps editing some linker script for embedded.

PS: that said, "experience" is relative. Having to use the command line in general but mostly for learning is terrible.

13of40• 4 years ago

I've always thought it was a little bit pathological that we require application developers to also be experts in build and deployment. The parts that can't be automated away should be handled by (highly paid) specialists so when your dev is deciding whether to make a change they don't have to factor in how it gets from their box to production.

meindnoch2• 4 years ago

And then when something goes wrong, you’ll be staring at an opaque .vcproj file without any idea of what’s going on under the hood and how to fix it.

Narann• 4 years ago

Conversely, systematically starting a tutorial by listing and briefly explaining the important sections that will not be covered in order to avoid confusions during reading really help newcomers and make them confident.

bregma• 4 years ago

Build systems and dependency management are not a part of the language, they're a part of the OS you're developing on (and sometimes for). Or maybe one of several alternatives available for that OS.

tejohnso2• 4 years ago

“the other parts” of C++

I agree and that would be great. I'd also love a place to learn design with feedback. Should I use a friend function? Free function? Separate class? Abstract class? Should I create a separate folder and start a module?

It would be great to have something where you try an implementation, get feedback, and try again maybe a few times and then are presented with a few ideal options that you might not have tried.

buro9• 4 years ago

I loved the uni course that I did many many moons ago, and hey it's online and is complete enough that anyone can work against it:

https://www.dcs.bbk.ac.uk/~roger/cpp/

iLoveOncall2• 4 years ago

The problem with it being many many moons ago is that C++ has evolved so much since then that that course is now so outdated it's pretty much irrelevant.

rr888• 4 years ago

I used to be a C++ dev before moving to Java/Python. I'd like to go back but there seems to be few roles for people that aren't up to date experts. Is this the case? I'm not sure if the C++ shortage is like the COBOL shortage or a genuine active community that is growing.

svorakang• 4 years ago

There are jobs if you know where to look.

I regularly see ads searching for C++ developers. I'm in an automotive-heavy region in Northern Europe. C++ is widely used in HMIs, AD/ADAS, and general service development (diagnostic services, middleware). I also see the need of C++ developers in medtech and automation companies around here.

The ads request some experience, but in practice they are happy to recruit what they can find.

Some technologies change, so does C++, but not so long ago I landed a C++ gig for €80+/hr, although being more of a ANSI C90 expert, only used C++ occassionally (for test environments mostly), and being completely out of synch with the "latest" concepts of modern C++ and its tooling (as a reference, std::move was new to me; CMake was an annoying bigger sibling of Make). Customer was happy until that Chinese virus became a fad.

samsquire• 4 years ago

At one point in time I thought C++ was too complicated since I was only familiar with Java, Javascript, Python. I feel I didn't understand the reason for the complexity.

Then I began to study algorithms and then code generation at the assembly level. I've written very little assembly. But I want to generate assembly. This puts me in a difficult position.

Today I think C++ is fascinating as a language because it has wide implementer support (cppfront, MSVC, GCC, clang) and it is well defined as a language.

Someone can read the C++ standard documentation and implement a compiler for generating assembly for that AST. That's fascinating. Especially for a language as advanced as C++.

I am also fascinated by metaprogramming and C++ templates. I needed to learn how to use C++ templates to use coroutines with threadpools in C++. Can't say I understand them completely but I understand how we need to provide specializations to the compiler so it knows how to generate code for different cases.

I feel there's a missing orthogonal specification of computation that is cleanly compilable. As with Rust, with C++ there is many programs that are wrong by arrangement of tokens. It would be better if most arrangement of tokens are valid programs, due to semantics of the language not being subtle.

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/74520133/how-can-i-pass-...

I feel there's an omitted abstractions when it comes to code generation. The languages we use to represent computation in and relationships between things are rather low level. Mutable state is very difficult to reason about.

gigatexal• 4 years ago

C++ is huge and growing every 3? years (C++17, 20, 23...) is it really possible to master or can you only ever get to the point of being good enough to be dangerous?

zabzonk6• 4 years ago

a lot of c++ is there to support library writers worried about efficiency, rather than application programmers concerned with good-enough, maintainable code if. like most people, you are in the latter category, you can write pretty good code without worrying about all the bells & whistles of the later releases.

aninteger• 4 years ago

You end up mastering a subset of the language. Typically whatever you use at work or in your free time. Whether that subset is 10% or 90% is kind of up to you.

There was an old joke about everyone using a different subset of C++ but like most jokes it's mostly an over exaggeration.

C++ (and C) have amazing backwards compatibility and there is a strong chance that code written 30 years ago will still compile, link, and run as long as the dependencies haven't also changed too much (I'm looking at you Win32, X11, Motif). That gives you the time to migrate code bases over time without the fear of being left behind and unsupported.

Even if, for some reason, you were writing C++98 for the last 30 years, it shouldn't be too difficult to make the jump to newer standards. The biggest change, in my opinion, is lambdas and move semantics, and it's not to difficult to apply those to an old code base (if you want to) and start modernizing it. Some people say C++20/23 is a new language but the fundamentals of C++ haven't changed too much and I'd say it's easier to learn C++23 coming from C++98 than it is to learn Rust coming from C++98.

rramadass2• 4 years ago

Some people say C++20/23 is a new language but the fundamentals of C++ haven't changed too much and I'd say it's easier to learn C++23 coming from C++98

I generally advise people wishing to learn C++ to read Bjarne Stroustup's 2nd Edition of The C++ Programming Language (TC++PL) first. All the Basic language features are there and it is manageable (i.e. C++98). Once they have an idea of this subset they can then move on to later standards eg. TC++PL 4th edition for C++11 and A Tour of C++ 3rd edition for upto C++20. This demonstrates the evolution of the language and brings home the point that there are orders of magnitude more C++98 code then C++11 and later.

pjmlp3• 4 years ago

Other languages grow every six months.

jeffreyrogers• 4 years ago

You don't have to learn it all at once and a lot of that new functionality is useful (I've used features from both C++17 and C++20 recently). I agree that learning C++ is hard though and there aren't good resources for new developers. Largely I think this is because C++ excels in domains where performance is important or where working directly with the OS/hardware is required and people working in these areas generally already have a pretty good programming background and so don't require as polished learning materials. I learned C++ by working on a big project (millions of lines of code) and being forced to figure it out as I went to be productive. I already knew C well at the time but that's not as big a help as you'd think since modern C++ is very far from C unless you are making lots of syscalls.

avsteele• 4 years ago

I am always grateful that people spent their time to create resources like this. This looks good and I would recommend it to someone who isn't a total newbie.

I also find it very interesting to look at the pedagogy of these sites. In the case of this site, it starts with a lot of history and computing. This is common for books, but asking a new user to wade through so much preamble before any 'meat' is asking a lot. In the first part where code is shown/explained:

https://www.learncpp.com/cpp-tutorial/statements-and-the-str...

is a lot of upfront jargon for a newbie to process. ('pre-processor directive')

It does do a good job of showing how to set up visual studio. However these days, a htttp://repl.it is surely a MUCH easier way to get up and running.

I wrote a very small ultra-beginner guide for a young relative to learn C. It gets right into what C code looks like, makes connections to the math they have seen in school, and tries to hold back terms until they are really needed (omitting details where needed)

It isn't polished designed for widespread use, but I think for the truest beginners its better than other guides I found on the web.

https://avsteele.com/C_Programming/

bluedino2• 4 years ago

Is this website any good? It's heavily pushed by some C++ subreddits.

I don't even know what I would recommend to a newbie. I learned C 25 years ago, and dabbled in C++ 2 or 3 times since then.

Bjarne's books might be great, but they aren't for anyone new to C++ and especially not anyone new to programming in general. C++ For Dummies/21 Days style books are just bad. And there are more bad websites than I can count.

tejohnso2• 4 years ago

Bjarne's books might be great, but they aren't for anyone new to C++ and especially not anyone new to programming in general.

I disagree. Not sure why PPP[1] wouldn't fit the bill. It's specifically geared to people who haven't programmed before.

1: https://stroustrup.com/programming.html

bluedino2• 4 years ago

One example is that he uses a header file called "std_lib_facilities". So right out of the gate it confuses people, it's not actually shown until a little later in the book, there's tons of questions on C++ forums and StackOverflow where people get stuck on it.

It's just not a clear, step-by-step introduction.

yeputons4• 4 years ago

Although I find the order of topics questionable, at least they talk about undefined behavior instead of saying blatantly wrong outdated stuff like "a read out of array range will just result in some garbage value being read". I've read some random pages and nothing stood out as blatantly wrong, which is already a high bar for a C++ course.

C++ is awful for beginners exactly because of undefined behavior, no good book can fix that, IMHO.

As for topics covered, talking in details about linkage, functions, constexpr, bit manipulation before if/for statements is, uhm, questionable, if this is aimed at beginners. Then the site talks about type conversions, function overloading, structs, and arrays only appear somewhere in the middle. Moreover, much simpler std::vector is introduced _after_ C-style arrays. Wild ride for a reader, but one can argue such order is more "academic", whatever that means.

sicp-enjoyer• 4 years ago

I learned from this website. I would recommend it to people who already know how to program another language.

jack_pp• 4 years ago

I learned C++ from scratch around 13-14 years ago through this website and with help from #freenode's C++ channel and I'm grateful for both.

synergy20• 4 years ago

This is an excellent website to learn modern c++.

I still wish it had better navigation design, like a side bar for easy access to the ToC, or a drop-down menu for the same thing. I have to use the back|forward to do that.

cplusplus.com is out of date, but it has the simplest and easiest web interface to me comparing to either learncpp.com or cppreference.com, super easy and simple to navigate: https://cplusplus.com/doc/tutorial/

jcq3• 4 years ago

Better learn chatGPT

tester457• 4 years ago

Practice GPT a day, to keep the replacement away

a-user-you-like• 4 years ago

This tutorial does not include modules, the best feature in C++ in a while. Is there a modern c++ intro or tutorial that includes CMake, modules, concepts, etc?

leni5364• 4 years ago

Are modules production ready yet on all platforms?

jeffbee• 4 years ago

Do they work at all on any platform? They are much less than half-baked on GCC or clang and MSVC has incomplete support.

notRobot• 4 years ago

I used this website to learn C++ a many years ago and it made it very easy! Very thankful for this resource, and others like it.

LearnCPP: Website devoted to teaching you how to program in C++

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