Programming: Principles and Practice Using C++

Programming — is the art of expressing solutions to problems in a way that a computer can execute them. The main efforts of a programmer are directed at finding and refining a solution, and quite often a complete understanding of the problem comes only during the programming of its solution. This book is intended for those who have never programmed before but are ready to learn this at the cost of hard and persistent work. It will help you master the main principles and gain practical experience in programming in C++. My goal is to present a sufficient amount of information and teach you to solve simple and useful programming tasks using the best and most modern methods. If you are a first-year university student, you can study this book over the course of a semester (assuming you have four other courses of medium difficulty). If you are studying programming on your own, do not expect to master this course in less time (well, provided that you work 15 hours a week, you might need 14 weeks). Three months may seem long, but the volume of the course is quite large, and you will be able to write your first simple programs after working on the book for about an hour. Moreover, the complexity of the material gradually increases: each chapter introduces new useful concepts that are illustrated with real examples. The ability to express your ideas in a programming language — that is, the skill of explaining to the computer what is required of it — will gradually develop as you study.