Which topics should be covered in a basic undergraduate C++ course?

Question

I have a young lecturer friend who is going to teach the undergraduate C++ course in CS. He asked me for some suggestions regarding how the course should be organized. Now I am asking you. I have seen many trends in universities which leads to a nasty experience of C++. So, please suggest from a professional programmer's point of view.

For your information, the students going to take the course, have taken course like "Introduction to programming with C" in previous semester.

Answer 1

Bjarne Stroustrup wrote a book recently that's devoted to teaching C++. It emphasizes STL's algorithms and data-structures.

http://www2.research.att.com/~bs/programming.html

Answer 2

There should not be a "C++" course in a computer science curriculum. If a specific language is used for a specific class, that should just be incidental to the class.

Does anyone think MIT, Carnegie Mellon, or other top-tier schools teach "C++" and "Java" classes? They teach an "introduction to programming" class that focuses on learning to program while mastering the mechanics of a single language, and everything beyond that is about computer science and uses whatever language the professor, dean or department feels is appropriate.

When I was at Carnegie Mellon, the Intro Programming course was in C, Fundamental Structures of Computer Science I was in C++ the following semester, and Fundamental Structures of Computer Science II was in Standard ML the semester after that. (These were the three basic CS courses everything else built on.) The first course spent pretty much the entire time on the C language, but the subsequent two courses spent maybe a week on the languages they used, and that only because they were still low-level classes. Subsequent classes spend less time on languages and mechanics, and all of their time on actual computer science. CS students are expected after their first couple languages to just pick up additional ones.

One also shouldn't say "But that's for MIT/CMU/Stanford/Caltech/whatever students, what about everyone else?" I wouldn't short-change students' educations just because they didn't (or couldn't) attend a top-tier university. If one has the opportunity to help provide a great education, it can be argued one has the moral/ethcial duty to do so.

If your friend is adjunct faculty and is required to teach a "C++" class, I'd strongly suggest taking a look at what some of the top-tier schools teach in their other courses, and building the course around that. For example, the school may not teach much about data structures right now; the class could be turned into "Data Structures Using C++." The lessons can be structured to add C++ language concepts as needed to implement the fundamental data structures, which will give students a solid grasp of both those data structures and the language itself.

It will probably help the students enormously in their education as well to come out of a second-semester course with a solid understanding of fundamental data structures.

Answer 3

Start with high level concepts, so the students can make correct, interesting programs in a reasonable amount of time. For example, introduce vectors, iterators and algorithms early on, and defer discussing arrays and pointers until very late in the course. This is exactly the approach taken by Bjarne Stroustrup, the inventor of C++.

What you absolutely should not do is start with plain C, then go to "C with classes", and cover the STL in the last lecture. Many books have taken that approach which gives a warped impression of what C++ is.

Answer 4

I like Xavier's anwser. Accelerated C++ is another good approach on the subject.

In all cases, don't assume the standard library is an advanced topic, or anything that doesn't deserve more than being in the appendices. No. The standard library is as important as the core langage itself. You won't have correctly taught the language if you have ignored these parts, or the RAII.

Unfortunatelly your students will have already seen the C before: they may think the C++ is just a continuation of the C and thus miss important differences.

Answer 5

I recently took a 8 lecture course on C/C++, the syllabus is:

Introduction to the C language. Background and goals of C. Types and variables. Expressions and statements. Functions. Multiple compilation units. [1 lecture]

Further C concepts. Preprocessor. Pointers and pointer arithmetic. Data structures. Dynamic memory management. Examples. [2 lectures]

Introduction to C++. Goals of C++. Differences between C and C++. References versus pointers. Overloading functions. [1 lecture]

Objects in C++. Classes and structs. Operator overloading. Virtual functions. Multiple inheritance. Virtual base classes. Examples. [2 lectures]

Further C++ concepts. Exceptions. Templates and meta-programming. Java Native Interface (JNI). Examples. [2 lectures]

http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/teaching/1011/CST/node32.html

EDIT: Since the students already took a lesson in C, it would be nice to not repeat the same things (basics, pointers etc.) and teach features of C++ like class, STL, templates.

Answer 6

I do not agree that iterators and the STL should be beelined for in an academically-minded C++ course. I'd far rather have students focus on the ability to build and compare different collection classes of their own, and understand the tradeoffs of whatever class they might encounter.

Aim for producing graduates who have enough grounding to look at the function prototypes in the STL docs and go "oh this is one of those types of approaches". Then they can have an equal confidence if they dig into some the big name codebases that they heard of which "use C++" but which don't use STL... like how Firefox foregoes std::string and defines its own (nsAString_Internal) hierarchy. Or nearly every Qt program out there, etc.

In the real world, cross-cutting concerns often preclude projects from using the STL. That can be issues like threading on embedded systems, implicit sharing, or Unicode. It's precisely the power of C++ to attack these problems with custom solutions that has kept the language relevant when going up against its nimbler interpreted competition. People who live and breathe C++, even for purposes best suited for shell scripting, miss that point.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1618798/why-is-there-a-different-string-class-in-every-c-platform-out-there

Since most of the other languages people are exposed to these days are interpreted, a real understanding of "compile-time" vs "run-time" is essential. Not just in terms of performance but in terms of globally assuring certain types of errors don't exist. Template syntax can get ugly, but all the more reason to show why anyone bothers with it.

Throw Valgrind in there and get them used to understanding what's happening to their memory from day one, and how automatic memory management can help. Let them write their own auto_ptr and then give them situations where it will flop in a simple collection. Have them write essays about why and re-derive unique_ptr and shared_ptr.

Bjarne Stroustrup makes some great points in his C++ teaching (which I often link to). But he's usually making arguments to hardened C programmers that if they think their C programs are faster than comparable STL-based C++, then the programs are probably only faster because they are incorrect. This takes the foregone conclusion that your problem required C-level performance in the first place, and no programmer of this generation should be assuming that.

In summary: I'm not suggesting "C with classes". I'm suggesting "Grasping the design tradeoffs in C++ software design [leveraging tools like inheritance, RAII, templates and overloading]" Too much STL emphasis up-front will just lead to a bunch of angry Java-converts-in-training who can't cut their teeth on showcase C++ projects.

Answer 7

Pointers and Objects. Can't go wrong with that. Also make sure they get plenty of lab practice.

Answer 8

I would agree with what a couple of the other responders have suggested; Accelerated C++ is an excellent starter book on c++. It is really well paced, and covers the majority of topics required for under-grad study. The book's contents would give you a good structure and the basis of a syllabus, augmented by more detailed books if necessary.

Answer 9

Working on long-term projects with other developers

Most bachelor-level programming courses seem to touch on the basics (objects, pointers, comments are good, etc) at some point - some more effectively than others.

I rarely hear about courses that focus on making you read and maintain someone else's code for 3-12 months (probably because the university class structure does not easily facilitate this).

The developers that I know all seem to have picked this up after they were hired - after reading/writing enough shitty code, you get a better feeling about how to write code that won't be a thorn in your side when you have to maintain it later.

Even a bad class with enough homework assignments can teach you what you need to know about syntax, assuming you know how to read the docs. But the ability to work on an actual project is something that I only see getting picked up after graduation.

Answer 10

One thing that I keep wishing would get taught in language-specific courses at any level of education is "when is this language not suitable for a task?" Too many people wander around the programming world convinced that Language/Technology X is the One True Hammer to hammer all problems with and the result is ... well it's what you see in software around you. It would be nice to have courses say both what languages are good for and to also point out the things they're perhaps less than ideal for.

Answer 11

first thing first ,start with concept of OOPs using real life examples and then start c++ by comparing with other languages that student knows.

Answer 12

This should really be a course in OOP and\or data structures.

If they have had an introduction to programming using C already, then there's not a real need to go in depth into basics of the language like pointers and arrays. Make them start with an object orientated C programming style and force them to do some inheritance style programming, the need for C++ should click automatically after that painful experience and set the tone for the rest of the class. A good starting assignment could force them to write code to convert between 3 to 5 different currencies.

Answer 13

The first and foremost, start with the pointers. Yes, I understand that this will be covered in C class, but unless pointer concept is clear the students are not going to understand the later topics. Approximately this is how I will go about it.
1) Pointers
2) Reference
3) Code reuse
4) Objects
5) Classes
. . .