THE EVOLUTION OF COMPUTER PROGRAMMING AND LANGUAGES:

AN OVERVIEW OF C AND C++  

It is important to familiarize yourself with the fundamentals of computer programming, computer languages, and their evolution. It may not be apparent to you at this time how this knowledge is going to help you to program in C/C++. It should, however, be noted that within the past fifty years, a multitude of programming concepts and methods has been introduced, and many different languages have been designed. Yet, they all still depend on a foundation that has remained relatively the same.  

In this chapter, you are going to encounter unfamiliar terminology. What I would like you to do is to skim through this chapter and grasp as much as you can, without attempting to understand everything fully. By examining the history of computer programming, it is hoped that you will be able to better understand the way programming and languages are shaped, and have an idea as to what to expect for the future of computer programming and languages.  

 In order to give you a picture of computer programming and its abilities, I will introduce you to a very important program that is known as a search, written in both C and C++. You will then experience what I call the magic of programming, where the knowledge of building one program will lead you to build other programs without much effort. For example, you will see how a Telephone Operator Search Program can also act as a language translator, a dictionary, and can also easily become a bank or supermarket retrieval system.  

I will conclude the chapter by giving examples of pitfalls in C/C++ programming that may cause misconceptions and delay learning. These pitfalls, which are the result of hidden notions and unknown rules, are contributing factors to what I call the mystery of C/C++ programming. You should be aware that the problems these pitfalls cause have nothing to do with your intelligence, and that you will learn to solve them.  

By going through the foundations of programming and languages you will find it easier to build programs from scratch using C/C++ in the chapters that follow.