Friday, April 23, 2010

C/C++ course on MIT's OCW

Eunsuk Kang and I taught a C/C++ course for undergraduates during MIT's 2010 Independent Activities Period. The course description is as follows:

Ever hang your head in shame after your Python program wasn't as fast as your friend's C program? Ever wish you could use objects without having to use Java? Join us for this fun introduction to C and C++! We will take you through a tour that will start with writing simple C programs, go deep into the caves of C memory manipulation, resurface with an introduction to using C++ classes, dive deeper into advanced C++ class use and the C++ Standard Template Libraries. We'll wrap up by teaching you some tricks of the trade that you may need for tech interviews.

We see this as a "C/C++ empowerment" course: we want you to come away understanding

  1. why you would want to use C over another language (control over memory, probably for performance reasons),
  2. why you would want to use C++ rather than C (objects), and
  3. how to be useful in C and C++.

The materials are now online on MIT's Open Courseware.

2 comments:

Reid K said...

If you want to do it again next IAP and want help or a TA, I'd love to help. I like the idea of "empowering" students to know when to use C/C++ and how to do so when they finally find themselves in the appropriate situation.

learning programming said...

AWESOME. This is exactly what i've been looking for. No more Sam's for me.