Introduction; Simplest Program; Basic Output
ITP 165 Fall 2015
Week 1, Lecture 1
Computers are much smarter than us, right?
WRONG!
Explaining Tic-Tac-Toe to a Human
It's a 2 player game
There is a grid of 9 squares
First player is Xs and Second player is Os
When it's a player's turn, they draw 1 X or O
First player to get 3 symbols in a line wins.
(If you play perfectly you always will draw).
Explaining Tic-Tac-Toe to a Computer
It's a 2 player
game
???
???????
There
is a grid of 9 squares
??????????
?????
First
player is Xs and Second player is Os
????????????????????????
When
it's a player's turn, they draw 1 X????
or O
??????????????????????
First
player to get 3 ??????????????
symbols in a line wins.
???????????
(If
you play perfectly you always will draw).
??????????????????????????
Computers Understand
Basic numbers
Basic arithmetic
Basic logic
Thats it!
BUT
They can do billions of such operations every second
Machine Code
Computers actually only understand machine code
High-Level Programming Language
A programming language that abstracts the low-level machine
code details
May have some words that look like English
Examples:
Who uses C++?
Compiler
Behind the scenes converts our C++ code into machine code
Before we start programming
The most important thing is not the syntax (grammar) of C++
In order to be successful at programing, you must understand the
idea of an algorithm a step-by-step procedure for calculations*
Before you start writing one line of code, you should plan out stepby-step what your program must do
A simple problem
Given a deck of cards
group them by suit
Card Grouping Algorithm #1
1. Throw all of the cards on the ground.
2. Pick up all of the cards, and hope that they are grouped by suit.
3. If they arent grouped by suit, repeat steps 1-2 until they are
grouped by suit.
Card Grouping Algorithm #2
1. Create four piles, one for each suit.
2. Go through each card one by one, and place it in the
corresponding pile.
3. Once you have ran out of cards in the deck, you will have four
fully grouped piles.
So whats this prove?
Its important to have a good algorithm before you actually start
writing the code
You could write flawless code for algorithm #1, but because
algorithm #1 is a terrible algorithm, the program will be terrible
Before you write one line of code, figure out the logical steps you
will need to follow in order to solve the problem
Now lets look at some C++
Dont be afraid to ask questions!
The Simplest C++ Program
int main()
{
return 0;
}
The body of the program
int main()
{
return 0;
}
Statement
A statement in C++ is a single command
Basic statements must end with a semicolon.
So in our first example, we have the following statement:
return 0;
Return statement
The return statement says okay the program is finished*
Your program must always end in a return statement
Syntax (eg. the grammar) for return statement:
return 0;
End of
statement
return keyword Return code
0 = OK
1 = Error
What happens if we run this program?
int main()
{
return 0;
}
Syntax Errors
The syntax of C++ is very rigid; make a mistake and you will get an
error
Visual Studio and Xcode will try to help you find errors
Build Error
If you make a mistake in the program, when you try to run in
Visual Studio it will say:
Always say NO and find/fix the error(s)!
Comment
A comment is a note you can leave in the program
It is not code that runs
Comments start with // and end at the end of the line
// This is a comment
Comment Syntax
Its pretty simple:
// Random words/letters go here
Must begin
with:
//
Anything can
go here
Simplest Program, Now with comments!
int main()
{
// This is my awesome program
return 0;
// Program done!!
}
Basic Text Output
Lets make a program that does something slightly more exciting:
Code for Basic Text Output
// Basic output example
#include <iostream>
int main()
{
std::cout << "I can't do that, Dave." << std::endl;
return 0;
}
Code for Basic Text Output Whats new?
// Basic output example
#include <iostream>
int main()
{
std::cout << "I can't do that, Dave." << std::endl;
return 0;
}
#include Directive
C++ has a lot of different things in the language
#include is required to specify what parts of the programming
language youre using (called a library)
Note that many basic things (such as return, arithmetic, etc.) do
not require a #include
Slightly more complex stuff (like text input and output) does
require specific #include directives
#include Directive, contd
#include directives always go in the header part of the
program, before the int main line
// Basic output example
#include <iostream>
int main()
{
std::cout << "I can't do that, Dave." << std::endl;
return 0;
}
#include Directive Syntax
Library were using
(in this case, iostream)
#include <iostream>
#include keyword
Required < and >
C++ Libraries
There are a lot of different libraries we might want to #include
For now, we will only be using two:
iostream Allows for basic text input and output
string More on this in a little bit
What about that weird std::cout statement?
// Basic output example
#include <iostream>
int main()
{
std::cout << "I can't do that, Dave." << std::endl;
return 0;
}
std::cout statement For console output
Simplest version of std::cout would look like this:
Text we want to output
(must be in quotes!!)
std::cout << "Hello!";
Means this is a std::cout
statement
Required <<
End of
statement
std::cout Chaining
We can chain multiple phrases by adding on additional << prior to
the semicolon
For example, these two std::cout statements would both output
the same thing:
// Outputs "Hello world!"
std::cout << "Hello world!";
// Also outputs "Hello world!"
std::cout << "Hello " << "world!";
Chain this!
What about two std::cout statements?
#include <iostream>
int main()
{
std::cout << "Hello!";
std::cout << "Goodbye!";
return 0;
}
std::endl
#include <iostream>
int main()
{
std::cout << "Hello!" << std::endl;
std::cout << "Goodbye!" << std::endl;
return 0;
}
Going back to the earlier example
// Basic output example
#include <iostream>
int main()
{
std::cout << "I can't do that, Dave." << std::endl;
return 0;
}
