Since this book is a hands-on book, it contains code that you can type, compile, and run. To compile the code, you will need a C++ compiler and linker, and in this book that means Visual Studio 2017 Community Edition, which provides Visual C++. This compiler was chosen because it is a free download, it is compliant with C++ standards and it has very wide range of tools to make writing code easier. Visual C++ provides C++11-compliant language features and almost all the language features of C++14 and C++17. Visual C++ is also provided with the C99 runtime library, C++11 standard library, and C++14 standard library. All of this mentions of standard means that the code that you learn to write in this book will compile with all other standard C++ compilers.
This chapter will start with details about how to obtain and install Visual Studio 2017 Community Edition. If you already have a C++ compiler, you can skip this section. Most of this book is vendor-neutral about the compiler and linker tools, but Chapter 10, Diagnostics and Debugging, which covers debugging and diagnostics, will cover some Microsoft-specific features. Visual Studio has a fully featured code editor, so even if you do not use it to manage your projects, you'll find it useful to edit your code.
After we've described the installation, you'll learn the basics of C++: how source files and projects are structured, and how you can manage projects with potentially thousands of files.
Finally, the chapter will finish with a step-by-step structured example. Here you will learn how to write simple functions that use the standard C++ library and one mechanism to manage files in the project.
