Hello, and welcome to Beginning C++ Programming.
Thank you very much for enrolling in this course
and placing your confidence in the Learn Programming Academy team
and in me for your training.
In this video, I'd like to introduce you to the course.
But first, I'd like to introduce myself.
My name is Frank Mitropoulos, and I'll be your instructor for this course.
You can read more about me in the course bio.
But I want you to be sure that I will do everything I can to make sure the course content is correct,
relevant, understandable and hopefully, fun.
I've been a university computer science professor for many years.
I've also worked in industry as a programmer, software engineer and project manager.
I've taught thousands of students in both academia and industry how to program,
using many programming languages.
But c++ is my favorite language to teach.
I first learned c++ back in 1988,
and I've used it ever since. That's quite a long time ago, and c++ has evolved
greatly since then.
I'm very excited to teach this course.
I hope you're also excited about learning c++.
In this course, I assume that you're completely new to c++.
I also assume that you have little if any programming experience with other programming languages.
If you do have programming experience, that's great. This course is still for you
since you'll definitely learn c++.
The course curriculum has been developed in a way that introduces new topics
in a specific order.
I encourage you to follow along one section at a time.
Before you know it, you'll be writing c++ programs that solve problems.
In this course, I'll cover modern c++.
I'll talk more about just exactly what modern c++
is as we go through the course.
But rest assured that you'll be learning c++ as it should be used today.
Over the years, I've worked with many, many students,
and I can only remember a few that just didn't get programming.
I still think that if they tried a little harder than programming would have clicked at some point.
If you're new to programming, you will, at some point in this course, feel frustrated.
This is perfectly normal.
Programming is a skill that must be learned and practiced.
You play a musical instrument?
Do you remember what it sounded like the first time you played?
Do you remember wanting to smash that guitar or piano because you just couldn't get it?
Programming is similar. You must practice and practice to get better.
If you get frustrated, take a break and try again a bit later.
Remember, we've all been there.
I still remember the first program I ever wrote. It was back in 1980
using a programming language called Fortran 77.
I was so excited that I was able to program a computer to do exactly what I wanted it to do.
The program was pretty simple. It asked the user for an amount in US dollars
and then displayed how many quarters, dimes,nickels and pennies
it would take to add up to that entered amount.
We'll do the same problem in this course.
I also remember that it took me a couple,
okay maybe more than a couple of attempts before it was correct.
But man what a great feeling when it ran correctly.
In this course, each section ends with a challenge exercise.
These will help reinforce the concepts presented in the section to help in learning the material.
Once you've finished the challenge, don't stop there, challenge yourself.
Come up with similar problems on your own and solve them
then do it again and again. Make it fun, make the problem silly if you want to.
It doesn't matter. It's all about practice.
Finally, if you have any questions at all, please ask them in the forums.
I will personally monitor the forums and respond to questions.
Before you post though,
browse the already answered questions since your question may already have an answer.
Well, enough talk. I look forward to working with everyone.
Let's start learning c++.