C++ is the programming language we use to program the robot and one of the most commonly used languages today. However, it is not an easy language to learn for a beginner due to the fact that it has a steep learning curve. This document is designed to help teach the basics of C++.
You will learn
- Why you want to know C++
- How C++ goes from a text file to binary code that can run
- Basic syntax of C++
- C++ data types
- Functions
- Arrays
- Classes
- Inheritance and composition
- Dynamic memory
You need to know
- Basic computer components
- How programs are structured
- Algebra
What You Need
- A computer
- The CodeBlocks (or equivalent) IDE with a compiler
- For Windows, choose the file with "mingw-setup" in the name. You will most likely need MinGW in order to compile the code you write.
- Time
About C++
C++ was created by a man named Bjarne Stoustrup as an upgrade to C that fixed many of the issues and complaints. There are many C-based languages, but C++ is one of the most popular. C was created in order to write the Unix operating system, the mainstay of the computing industry since the 1970's. C was created to be simple, fast, efficient, and powerful.
A few C-based programming languages are...
- C++
- Designed to be extremely fast and efficient
- More complex than C
- Object-oriented programming supported
- Much of the C++ code is backwards-compatible with C
- Often used for background tasks such as graphics engines, robotics, and operating systems
- Java (not to be confused with JavaScript)
- Slow when compared to C and C++ because it runs in a virtual machine – high RAM and CPU usage
- Similar syntax to C++
- Object-oriented
- Designed for user-level applications and good cross-platform support
- Used for web programming and cross-platform applications, the main programming language used on Android phones
- Objective-C
- Implements many of the same missing features from C that C++ added
- Object-oriented
- Not backwards-compatible with C, syntax is significantly different
- Can be mixed with C++ code
- Primarily used on Apple devices, used to write apps for Mac and iOS devices
A few notes
// makes the rest of this line a comment in C++, the compiler ignores this# is a preprocessor directive, more on those later- Each line of code must end with a semicolon (
;). If you don't include this, two lines will be seen as the same line (which can be useful if you need to do a lot of comparisons).
- Blocks of code are enclosed in
{ }
A few suggestions
- Always comment your code. This will help a lot when someone (or you) tries to look at it in the future. It doesn't matter how self-explanatory your code is, comment it!
- If you can't figure out what is wrong with your code, ask someone else.
- Write self-documenting code. This means use names that make since and clearly show the logic that the program uses. Make it consistent.
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