CppCon 2019

C++ is seen as a complex language to teach. There are many reasons to think that: the language if taken as a whole is huge, its complexity daunting.

That goes, to be honest, for many programming languages: programming is a complex and stimulating activity, and C++'s growth mirrors the fact that is has been used to solve complex problems in efficient ways.

However, introducing C++ to beginners or to people coming from other languages is feasible, and is done every day. Amusingly, so-called "modern" C++ actually makes the language more approachable in many ways. Instead of starting with the traditional "basics" such as arrays and pointers, one can treat these as more advanced topics, and introduce the language through more contemporary abstractions.

What this talk aims to do is to show, through comparisons of solutions written in C++ with solutions written in other languages (mainly C# and Java), how C++ can be used as an introductory language as easily as other reputedly-easier-on-beginners languages, while still paving the way for the introduction of reputedly-more-difficult features.