Programming Principles and Practice Using C++

by Stroustrup, Bjarne

• ISBN13: 9780321543721
• ISBN10: 0321543726
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2008-12-15
• Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional

Summary

The inventor of C++ gives perhaps the most important introduction to programming ever written.

Author Biography

Bjarne Stroustup is the College of Engineering Chair in Computer Science Professor at Texas A&M University.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. xxiii
Notes to the Reader	p. 1
The structure of this book	p. 2
A philosophy of teaching and learning	p. 6
Programming and computer science	p. 12
Creativity and problem solving	p. 12
Request for feedback	p. 12
References	p. 13
Biographies	p. 14
Computers, People, and Programming	p. 17
Introduction	p. 18
Software	p. 19
People	p. 21
Computer science	p. 24
Computers are everywhere	p. 25
Ideals for programmers	p. 34
The Basics	p. 41
Hello,World!	p. 43
Programs	p. 44
The classic first program	p. 45
Compilation	p. 47
Linking	p. 51
Programming environments	p. 52
Objects, Types, and Values	p. 59
Input	p. 60
Variables	p. 62
Input and type	p. 64
Operations and operators	p. 66
Assignment and initialization	p. 69
Composite assignment operators	p. 73
Names	p. 74
Types and objects	p. 77
Type safety	p. 78
Computation	p. 89
Computation	p. 90
Objectives and tools	p. 92
Expressions	p. 94
Statements	p. 99
Functions	p. 112
Vector	p. 116
Language features	p. 123
Errors	p. 131
Introduction	p. 132
Sources of errors	p. 134
Compile-time errors	p. 134
Link-time errors	p. 137
Run-time errors	p. 138
Exceptions	p. 144
Logic errors	p. 152
Estimation	p. 155
Debugging	p. 156
Pre- and post-conditions	p. 161
Testing	p. 164
Writing a Program	p. 171
A problem	p. 172
Thinking about the problem	p. 173
Back to the calculator!	p. 176
Grammars	p. 186
Turning a grammar into code	p. 193
Trying the first version	p. 201
Trying the second version	p. 206
Token streams	p. 207
Program structure	p. 213
Completing a Program	p. 219
Introduction	p. 220
Input and output	p. 220
Error handling	p. 222
Negative numbers	p. 227
Remainder	p. 228
Cleaning up the code	p. 231
Recovering from errors	p. 238
Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.

Excerpts

" Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead." Admiral Farragut Programming is the art of expressing solutions to problems so that a computer can execute those solutions. Much of the effort in programming is spent finding and refining solutions. Often, a problem is only fully understood through the process of programming a solution for it. This book is for someone who has never programmed before, but is willing to work hard to learn. It helps you acquire the principles and practical skills of programming using the C++ programming language. My aim is for you to gain sufficient knowledge and experience to perform simple useful programming tasks using the best up-to-date techniques. How long will that take? As part of a first-year university course, you can work through this book in a semester (assuming that you have a workload of four courses of average difficulty). If you work by yourself, don't expect to spend less time than that (maybe 15 hours a week for 14 weeks). Three months may seem a long time, but there's a lot to learn and you'll be writing your first simple programs after about an hour. Also, all learning is gradual: each chapter introduces new useful concepts and illustrates them with examples inspired by real-world uses. Your ability to express ideas in code getting a computer to do what you want it to do gradually and steadily increases as you go along. I never say "learn a month's worth of theory and then see if you can use it." Why would you want to program? Our civilization runs on software. Without understanding software you are reduced to believing in "magic" and will be locked out of many of the most interesting, profitable, and socially useful technical fields of work. When I talk about programming, I think of the whole spectrum of computer programs from personal computer applications with GUIs (Graphical User Interfaces), through engineering calculations and embedded system control applications (such as digital cameras, cars, and cell phones), to text manipulation applications as found in many humanities and business applications. Like mathematics, programming when done well is a valuable intellectual exercise that sharpens our ability to think. However, thanks to feedback from the computer, programming is more concrete than most forms of math, and therefore accessible to more people. It is a way to reach out and change the world hopefully for the better. Finally, programming can be great fun. Why C++? You can't learn to program without a programming language and C++ directly supports the key concepts and techniques used in real-world software. C++ is one of the most widely used programming languages, found in an unsurpassed range of application areas. You find C++ applications everywhere from the bottom of the oceans to the surface of Mars. C++ is precisely and comprehensively defined by a non-proprietary international standard. Quality and/or free implementations are available on every kind of computer. Most of the programming concepts that you will learn using C++ can be used directly in other languages, such as C, C#, Fortran, and Java. Finally, I simply like C++ as a language for writing elegant and efficient code. This is not the easiest book on beginning programming; it is not meant to be. I just aim for it to be the easiest book from which you can learn the basics of real-world programming. That's quite an ambitious goal because much modern software relies on techniques considered advanced just a few years ago. My fundamental assumption is that you want to write programs for the use of others, and to do so responsibly providing a decent level of system quality. That is, I assume that you want to achieve a level of professionalism. Consequently, I chose the topics for this book to cover what is needed to get started with real-world programming, not just what is easy to teach and learn. If you need a technique to get basic work done right, I'll describe it, demonstrate concepts and language facilities needed to support the technique, provide exercises for it, and expect you to work on those exercises. If you just want to understand toy programs, you can get along with far less than I present. On the other hand, I won't waste your time with material of marginal practical importance. If an idea is explained here, it's because you'll almost certainly need it. If your desire is to use the work of others without understanding how things are done and without adding significantly to the code yourself, this book is not for you. If so, please consider if you would be better served by another book and another language. If that is approximately your view of programming, please also consider from where you got that view and whether it in fact is adequate for your needs. People often underestimate the complexity of programming as well as its value. I would hate for you to acquire a dislike for programming because of a mismatch between what you needed and the part of the software reality I describe. There are many parts of the "Information Technology" world that do not require knowledge of programming. This book is aimed to serve those who do want to write nontrivial programs. Because of its structure and practical aims, this book can also be used as a second book on programming for someone who already knows a bit of C++ or for someone who programs in another language and wants to learn C++. If you fit into one of those categories, I refrain from guessing how long it will take you to read this book, but I do encourage you to do many of our exercises. This will help you to counteract the common problem of writing programs in older, familiar, styles rather than adopting newer techniques where these are more appropriate. If you have learned C++ in one of the more traditional ways, you'll find something surprising and useful before you reach Chapter 7. Unless your name is Stroustrup, what I discuss here is not "your father's C++." Programming is learned by writing programs. In this, programming is similar to other endeavors with a practical component. You cannot learn to swim, to play a musical instrument, or to drive a car just from reading a book you must practice. Nor can you learn to program without reading and writing lots of code. This book focuses on code examples closely tied to explanatory text and diagrams. You need those to understand the ideals, concepts, and principles of programming and to master the language constructs used to express them. That's essential, but by itself, it will not give you the practical skills of programming. For that, you need to do the exercises and get used to the tools for writing, compiling, and running programs. You need to make your own mistakes, and learn to correct them. There is no substitute for writing code. Besides, that's where the fun is! On the other hand, there is more to programming much more than following a few rules and reading the manual. This book is emphatically not focused on "the syntax of C++." Understanding the fundamental ideals, principles, and techniques is essence of a good programmer. Only well-designed code has a chance of becoming part of a correct, reliable, and maintainable system. Also, "the fundamentals" are what lasts: they will still be essential after today's languages and tools have evolved or been replaced. What about computer science, software engineering, information technology, etc.? Is that all programming? Of course not! Programming is one of the fundamental topics that underlie everything in computer-related fields and has a natural place in a balanced course of computer science. I provide brief introductions to key concepts and t