Contents

Part 0: Getting a compiler to obey

  1. 0Installing a Compiler Without Losing Your Mind

Part 1: Writing programs

  1. 1Hello, World, and What Actually Happened
  2. 2Your First Error Message
  3. 3Variables, and the Types They Insist On
  4. 4Strings: Text That Doesn't Fight Back
  5. 5Input: Letting the Reader Talk Back
  6. 6Arithmetic, and Where It Betrays You
  7. 7Deciding Things: if, else, and Booleans
  8. 8Loops: Doing It Again Until It's Done
  9. 9Functions: Giving Work a Name
  10. 10std::vector: A List That Grows
  11. 11Printing, Poking, and Proving It Works
  12. 12Copies, References, and Not Wasting Work
  13. 13Sorting and Searching Without Writing Either
  14. 14struct: Things That Belong Together
  15. 15Files: Making Your Program Remember
  16. 16Maps: Looking Things Up by Name
  17. 17Validation: Assuming the Worst
  18. 18Classes: Types You Design Yourself
  19. 19Constructors, and Types That Can't Be Broken
  20. 20Splitting a Program Across Files
  21. 21Interlude: Build Something Real

Part 2: Lifting the floor

  1. 22What a Variable Really Is
  2. 23Pointers, Finally
  3. 24What std::string Was Hiding
  4. 25Raw Arrays, and Why vector Exists
  5. 26The Heap, new, delete, and What Goes Wrong
  6. 27Ownership, Destructors Doing the Work
  7. 28Templates, One Function, Any Type
  8. 29Iterators, and What range-for Becomes
  9. 30Borrowing Without Owning
  10. 31Undefined Behaviour, When C++ Stops Promising
  11. 32Where to Go Next
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Chapter 28

Templates, One Function, Any Type

The angle brackets from chapter 10, explained at last.

Part 2

This chapter needs a key

Chapter 10 handed you std::vector<int> and asked you to take the angle brackets on trust. This is the promise being kept, and it turns out to explain the worst error messages in C++ as well.

You'll build: Write the code the compiler writes. Build a function that works on any type, then break it and read the error properly.

I have a key →Part 2 goes on sale soon

Part 1, chapters 0 to 21, is free and always will be.