Word of Caution

If you've come that far, you may congratulate yourself. You've learned the essence of C++. The rest is filling in the details. (Well, there is still polymorphism-there's no object oriented programming without it. And references. And operator overloading.) Can you imagine that there are people who claim to know C++, and even write programs in C++, without knowing all that? Here I'm telling you all about the importance of scopes, constructors and destructors, data hiding, interfaces, contracts, etc., and they will say: "What, constructors? I don't use them in C++. I declare all my variables at the top of the function (Member function? No, I mean global function) and then initialize them whenever they are needed." Next thing they'll tell you is that they can compile their C++ programs using a C compiler ("For backward compatibility, you know.").

It's just a warning. When you rush to your office first thing tomorrow morning, panting, eager to share your new fascination with C++ with your fellow programmers, that's what you may encounter. Not to mention these programmers who will say: "C++ is too slow for me. C gives me more control."