While by no means a complete guide or reference to classes and objects, this chapter introduces and explains the concepts the reader will need to understand the examples and explanations in the rest of this book. As our interest is and will be in representing design patterns in C++, this chapter focuses on the proper use of classes and inheritance. We pay particular attention to what relations are expressed through different C++ features—it's through these features we'll express relations and interactions between different components that form a design pattern.
The next chapter will similarly cover knowledge of C++ templates, which will be necessary to understand the subsequent chapters of this book.
