CS333 - Problem Solving and Object Oriented Programming in C++
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  Why learn C++

C++ is not an easy langauge to learn - so why is it used as the teaching language at ODU?

• C++ is an industrial grade language

  It has been used to implement many large programming systems ranging from operating systems to real-time network applcations

• C++ has many compilers available - these compilers produce efficient code and many have good Integrated Development Environments (IDEs)

  Three commonly used compilers are:

  • GNU C++ (known as g++ on the DCS UNIX system) - this is available for free and runs on UNIX and WINDOWS 9x/nt machines. It's biggest drawback is that it lacks an IDE
  • Microsoft's Visual C++ - this is available at the TELETECHNET sites
  • Borland's C++ - popular and inexpensive PC compiler.
• C++ supports object oriented programming

  In industry, new systems are frequnetly developed using object-oriented design and implementation

C++ has a few warts - mainly due to the desire of its developer to remain compatible with the langauge "C".
"C++" is not a pure object-oriented programming langauge. You can fall back on its "C" roots and use it as a procedural programming language.
In many cases there will be more than one way to accomplish the same task - one based on the older "C" language and its libraries and one based on C++ and its libraries.

C++ continues to develop with new featrues and improved libraries. I will try to avoid the older features of C++ which are falling out of favor.

Copyright chris wild 1999.
For problems or questions regarding this website contact [Chris Wild (e-mail:cs333@cs.odu.edu].
Last updated: September 01, 1999.