The Stroustrup method for learning C++
While the C++ standard has evolved toward simplicity, many of the learning materials have stayed the same. I can imagine it’s difficult to keep up with the C++ standard, given its newfound speed of change after 2010, and a question always remains: How much code is using the latest standard? Won’t students need to learn anyway the old ways of C++ so that they can deal with decades-old code bases?
Despite this possibility, we must progress at some point, and Bjarne Stroustrup thought the same. The third edition of his book, Programming: Principles and Practice using C++ (https://www.amazon.com/Programming-Principles-Practice-Using-C-ebook/dp/B0CW1HXMH3/), published in 2024, is addressed to beginners in programming and takes them through the C++ language. The book is a very good introduction to C++, and it’s accompanied by examples and a slide deck useful for anyone who wants to teach or learn the language.
It’s interesting to note that Stroustrup does not shy away from the topic of pointers and memory management, instead discussing the minimum necessary and immediately showing the ways modern C++ avoids them.
Let’s take as an example the slides associated with Chapter 16 that focus on arrays. They start with an explanation of naked arrays, their connection with pointers, and how you can get in trouble when using pointers. Then, alternatives are introduced: vector, set, map, unordered_map, array, string, unique_ptr, shared_ptr, span, and not_null. The deck ends with an example of a palindrome implementation in multiple ways, comparing the differences in safety and brevity of the code. Therefore, the whole purpose of this chapter is to show the various issues with arrays and pointers and how STL structures help avoid these issues.
The resulting code closely resembles the Java or C# variants. However, Stroustrup points out that pointer arithmetic is still useful to implement data structures. In other words, use it sparingly and only when you really need heavy optimizations.
We conclude, therefore, that the language creator doesn’t shy away from pointers and memory management but is focused on removing a lot of the potential issues that come with it. This enables C++ programmers to care less about memory management than in the C++ 98 era, but still a little bit more than in Java or C#.
The question still stands: Could beginners learn C++ without thinking much about pointers? Another teaching method seems to prove this is possible – if we want to train library users instead of library creators.
