Chapter 1 – Hello, World!

Programming is learned
by writing programs.
– Brian Kernighan
 Abstract

Today, we’ll outline the aims for this course and

present a rough course plan. We’ll introduce the
basic notion of programming and give examples of
areas in which software is critical to our civilization.
Finally, we’ll present the simplest possible C++
program and outline how it can be made into
running code.

Stroustrup/Programming/2024/Chapter1 3
 Overview

• Course aims and outline

• Uses of software
• The first program: "Hello, world!"
• Compilation
• What is programming?

Stroustrup/Programming/2024/Chapter1 4
 This is a course
• In Programming
• For beginners
• who want to become professionals
• i.e., people who can produce systems that others will be happy
using
• who are assumed to be bright
• Though not (necessarily) geniuses
• who are willing to work hard
• Though do need sleep occasionally, and take a normal course
load
• Using the C++ programming language

Stroustrup/Programming/2024/Chapter1 5
 Not!
• A Washout course
• “If you can get into the science/engineering parts of a
university, you can handle this course”
• A course in
• The C++ programming language
• For students
• who want to become language lawyers
• We try not to get bogged down in technical obscurities
• who are assumed to be a bit dim and fairly lazy
• We try not to spoon feed
• Using
• Some untested software development methodologies and
a lot of unnecessarily long words
Stroustrup/Programming/2024/Chapter1 6
 The Aims
• Teach/learn
• Fundamental programming concepts
• Key useful techniques
• Basic Standard C++ facilities
• After the course, you’ll be able to
• Write small colloquial C++ programs
• Read much larger programs
• Learn the basics of many other languages by yourself
• Proceed with an “advanced” C++ programming course
• After the course, you will not (yet) be
• An expert programmer
• A C++ language expert
• An expert user of advanced libraries
Stroustrup/Programming/2024/Chapter1 7
 The Means
• Lectures
• Attend every one
• Notes/Chapters
• Read a chapter ahead (about one per lecture)
• Read the chapter again after each lecture
• Feedback is welcome (typos, bugs, suggestions,
etc.)

Stroustrup/Programming/2024/Chapter1 8
 The Means (Cont.)
• Work
• Review questions in chapters
• Review “Terms” in Chapters
• Drills
• Always do the drills
• Always do the drills before the exercises
• Exercises
• Course specific
• Projects
• That’s where the most fun and the best learning takes place
• Quizzes
• Exams

Stroustrup/Programming/2024/Chapter1 9
 Cooperate on Learning
• Except for the work you hand in as individual contributions, we
strongly encourage you to collaborate and help each other
• If in doubt if a collaboration is legitimate: ask!
• Don’t claim to have written code that you copied from others
• Don’t give anyone else your code (that you are to hand in for a grade)
• When you rely on the work of others, explicitly list all of your sources – i.e.,
give credit to those who did the work
• Don’t study alone when you don’t have to
• Form study groups
• Do help each other (without plagiarizing)
• Go to your TA's office hours
• Go prepared with questions
• The only stupid questions are the ones you wanted to ask but didn’t

Stroustrup/Programming/2024/Chapter1 10
 Rough course outline
• Part I: The basics
• Types, variables, strings, console I/O, computations, errors, vectors,
functions, source files, modules, classes
• Part II: Input and Output
• Text I/O
• Graphical output
• Graphical User Interface
• Part III: Data structures and algorithms
• Free store, pointers, and arrays
• Lists, maps, sorting and searching, vectors, templates
• The STL
• Part IV: Broadening the view (Web only, possibly just self study)
• Software ideals and history
• Text processing, numerics, embedded systems programming, testing, C,
etc.
Stroustrup/Programming/2024/Chapter1 11
 Rough course outline (Cont.)
• Throughout
• Program design and development techniques
• C++ language features
• Background and related fields, topics, and languages

Stroustrup/Programming/2024/Chapter1 12
 Promises
• Detail: We will try to explain every construct used in this course in
sufficient detail for real understanding
• There is no “magic”
• Utility: We will try to explain only useful concepts, constructs, and
techniques
• We will not try to explain every obscure detail
• Completeness: The concepts, constructs, and techniques can be
used in combination to construct useful programs
• There are, of course, many useful concepts, constructs, and techniques
beyond what is taught here

Stroustrup/Programming/2024/Chapter1 13
 More Promises
• Realism: The concepts, constructs, and techniques can be used
to build “industrial strength” programs
• i.e., they have been used to …
• Simplicity: The examples used are among the simplest realistic
ones that illustrate the concepts, constructs, and techniques
• Your exercises and projects will provide more complex examples
• Scalability: The concepts, constructs, and techniques can be
used to construct large, reliable, and efficient programs
• i.e., they have been used to …

Stroustrup/Programming/2024/Chapter1 14
 Feedback request

• Please mail questions and constructive comments

to
• ???
• Your feedback will be most appreciated
• Style, contents, detail, examples, clarity, conceptual
problems, exercises, missing information, depth of
presentation, etc.
• Book support website
• www.stroustrup.com/Programming
• Local course support website
• ???

Stroustrup/Programming/2024/Chapter1 15
 Why programming?
• Our civilization runs on software
• Most engineering activities involve software

• Note: most programs do not run on things that look like

a PC
• a screen, a keyboard, a box under the table

Stroustrup/Programming/2024/Chapter1 16
 Ships

• Design
• Construction
• Management
• Monitoring
• Loading
• Engine
• Hull design
• Scheduling
• Pumps
• Route planning Stroustrup/Programming/2024/Chapter1 17
 Aerospace

• Communication
• Control • Signal processing
• Display • “Gadget” control
• Routing • telemetry
Stroustrup/Programming/2024/Chapter1 18
 Cars
(distributed computers with wheels)

• Gas, diesel, hybrid, electric

• Self-driving
• Design
• Navigation
• Monitoring
• Entertainment
• Steering
• Breaks
Stroustrup/Programming/2024/Chapter1 19
 Phones

• Voice quality • Switching

• Reliability
• User interfaces
• Provisioning
• Billing
• Images
• Mobility
• Videos
Stroustrup/Programming/2024/Chapter1 • apps 20
Graphics, animation, and games

Stroustrup/Programming/2024/Chapter1 21
Commerce, finance, and governance
• Banks
• Stock exchanges
• Currency exchange
• Social services
• Medical records
• Taxes
• Online stores

Stroustrup/Programming/2024/Chapter1 22
 Medicine

• Scanners • Genomics
• Vaccine development and • Materials design
production • Simulations
• Analysis (blood, tissue) • ???
• General research Stroustrup/Programming/2024/Chapter1 23
 Energy

• Control
• Monitoring • Communications
• Analysis • Visualization
• Design • Manufacturing
Stroustrup/Programming/2024/Chapter1• Transport 24
 Science
• Physics
• Biology
• Engineering
• Astronomy

Stroustrup/Programming/2024/Chapter1 25
 Foundations

• Microelectronics
• Computers
• Routers • Operating
systems
• Networking
• Browsers
• Manufacturing
• Virtual machines
• Wireless
Stroustrup/Programming/2024/Chapter1 • Search engines
26
Laptops, tablets, workstations, servers, …

• There’s a lot more to computing than games, word

processing, browsing, and spreadsheets!

Stroustrup/Programming/2024/Chapter1 27
 Why C++ ?
• You can’t learn to program without a programming language
• The purpose of a programming language is to allow you to
express your ideas in code
• C++ is the language that most directly allows you to express
ideas from the largest number of application areas
• C++ is the most widely used language in engineering areas
• http://www.stroustrup.com/applications.html
• Other languages often use C++ for computation intensive
tasks
• E.g., Python doing AI
• The implementation of many languages are C++ programs
• E.g., Java and Javascript

Stroustrup/Programming/2024/Chapter1 28
 Why C++ ?
• C++ is precisely and comprehensively defined by an ISO
standard
• And that standard is almost universally accepted
• The most recent standard is ISO C++ 2023
• C++ is available on almost all kinds of computers
• Programming concepts that you learn using C++ can be
used fairly directly in other languages
• Including C, Java, C#, and (less directly) Fortran

Stroustrup/Programming/2024/Chapter1 29
 Where is C++ Used?
• Just about everywhere

• C++ plays a major part in all the examples and photos used here
• See www.stroustrup.com/applications.html
• Note: a large system is not written exclusively in one language
Stroustrup/Programming/2024/Chapter1 30
 A first program – complete
// a first program:

import std; // get the standard library facilities

int main() // main() is where a C++ program starts

{
std::cout << "Hello, world!\n"; // output the 13 characters Hello, world!
// followed by a new line
return 0; // return a value indicating success
}

// note the semicolons; they terminate statements

// braces { … } group statements into a block
// main( ) is a function thatStroustrup/Programming/2024/Chapter1
takes no arguments ( ) and returns an integer result
31
 A first program – older style
// a first program:

#include <iostream>; // get the library facilities needed for

now

int main() // main() is where a C++ program starts

{
std::cout << "Hello, world!\n"; // output the 13 characters Hello,
world!
// followed by a new line
return 0; // return a value indicating success
}

// the std:: says that cout comes from the standard library
Stroustrup/Programming/2024/Chapter1 32
// main( ) ‘s result indicate success (value 0) or failure (non zero value)
 A first program – use while
// a first program:
learning
#include “PPP.h” // get PPP support

int main() // main() is where a C++ program starts

{
cout << "Hello, world!\n"; // output the 13 characters Hello, world!
// followed by a new line
return 0; // return a value indicating success
}

// quotes delimit a string literal

// NOTE: “smart” quotes “ ” will cause compiler problems.
// \n is a notation for a new line

// for PPP.h, see www.stroustrup.com/Programming

Stroustrup/Programming/2024/Chapter1 33
 A first program – older style
// a first program:

#include “PPPheaders.h" // get the PPP support on older C++ implementations

int main() // main() is where a C++ program starts

{
cout << "Hello, world!\n"; // output the 13 characters Hello, world!
// followed by a new line
return 0; // return a value indicating success
}

// note the semicolons; they terminate statements

// braces { … } group statements into a block
// main( ) is a function that takes no arguments ( )
// and returns an int (an integer value) to indicate success or failure
Stroustrup/Programming/2024/Chapter1 34
 Hello, world!
• “Hello world” is a very important program
• Its purpose is to help you get used to your tools
• Compiler
• Program development environment
• Program execution environment
• Type in the program carefully
• After you get it to work, please make a few mistakes to see how
the tools respond; for example
• Forget the header
• Forget to terminate the string
• Misspell return (e.g., retrun)
• Forget a semicolon
• Forget { or }
• …

Stroustrup/Programming/2024/Chapter1 35
 Hello world
• It’s almost all “boiler plate”
• Only cout << "Hello, world!\n" directly does anything
• That’s normal
• Most of our code, and most of the systems we use simply exist to make
some other code elegant and/or efficient
• “real world” non-software analogies abound
• “Boiler plate,” that is, notation, libraries, and other support is
what makes our code simple, comprehensible, trustworthy, and
efficient.
• Would you rather write 1,000,000 lines of machine code?
• This implies that we should not just “get things done”; we
should take great care that things are done elegantly, correctly,
and in ways that ease the creation of more/other software:
Style Matters!
Stroustrup/Programming/2024/Chapter1 36
C++ source code
Compilation and linking
C++ compiler Object code

linker Executable program

Library Object code

• You write C++ source code (e.g. Hello.cpp)

• Source code is (in principle) human readable
• The compiler translates what you wrote into object code (e.g., Hello.o)
• sometimes called machine code
• Object code is simple enough for a computer to “understand”
• The linker links your code to other code needed for it to execute
• E.g., input/output libraries, operating system code, and windowing code
• The result is an executable program
• E.g., a .exe file on windows or an a.out file on Linux
Stroustrup/Programming/2024/Chapter1 37
 So what is programming?
• Conventional definitions
• Telling a very fast moron exactly what to do
• A plan for solving a problem on a computer
• Specifying the order of a program execution
• But modern programs often involve millions of lines of code
• And manipulation of data is central
• Definition from another domain (academia)
• A … program is an organized and directed accumulation of resources
to accomplish specific … objectives …
• Good, but no mention of actually doing anything
• The definition we’ll use
• Specifying the structure and behavior of a program, and testing that
the program performs its task correctly and with acceptable
performance
• Never forget to check that “it” works
• Software == one or more programs
Stroustrup/Programming/2024/Chapter1 38
 Programming
• Programming is fundamentally simple
• Just state what the machine is to do
• So why is programming hard?
• We want “the machine” to do complex things
• And computers are nitpicking, unforgiving, dumb beasts
• The world is more complex than we’d like to believe
• So we don’t always know the implications of what we want
• “Programming is understanding”
• When you can program a task, you understand it
• When you program, you spend significant time trying to
understand the task you want to automate
• Programming is part practical, part theory
• If you are just practical, you produce non-scalable unmaintainable
hacks
• If you are just theoretical, you produce toys
Stroustrup/Programming/2024/Chapter1 39
 Support
• Rely on local support, if available
• A C++ implementation (good and free)
• Clang, GCC, Microsoft, or other
• Always use the most recent version
• don’t suffer problems that “they” have already fixed
• Have the contemporary language features and library components available
• A Software development environment
• Visual studio, visual studio code, X-code, or other
• Or work from the command line
• Online compiler: e.g., https://godbolt.org/
• Online reference manual: https://en.cppreference.com/w/
• Supporting libraries: www.stroustrup.com/programming.html
Stroustrup/Programming/2024/Chapter1 40
 The next lecture
• Will talk about types, values, variables, declarations,
simple input and output, very simple computations, and
type safety.

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