Important Preface

1. Though titled as “Basics”, it dives into difficult parts (e.g. implementation algorithms of containers) and has many prerequisites, meaning that it’s not for programming freshman.
2. I speak Chinese in online videos and homework, and (mostly) use English in slides.
3. This course is allowed to be reposted as long as the course link and my name are explicitly noted there. To be accurate, this course uses CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0.
4. Because this is my first course, there definitely exist many problems in course scheduling, homework and online videos. Therefore, it’s not your fault if you feel difficult to follow, and you may learn other courses.

About This Course

C++ is the premier choice for high-performance, low-latency programming, widely adopted in performance-critical scenarios such as high-frequency trading, game engines, and deep learning frameworks. However, in many universities, C++ curricula often stop at C++98 and fall short of modern engineering practices. As C++ continues to evolve, modern C++ has introduced a wealth of new features that significantly improve developer productivity and code safety. Therefore, this course will comprehensively and systematically cover major features from C++11 to C++23, with in-depth analysis of selected topics. We hope to equip students with the foundational ability to read production-level code, understand performance trade-offs, and write safe, idiomatic C++.

Note: This course is originally designed for PKU sophomore undergraduates, so it is structured to build upon knowledge they have already acquired. For example, topics like containers and algorithms are covered very early.

Prerequisites

Computer Science: For PKU undergraduates, you’re supposed to pass Introduction to Computation (A), Practice of Programming in C & C++ (or Practice of Software Design), Introduction to Computer Systems (ICS), Data Structure and Algorithm (A). Or equivalently, you need to understand:

1. C++ Fundamentals
   • Basic types, arrays, structs, functions, pointers, enums, operators
   • Basic OOP: classes, ctor/dtor, inheritance, polymorphism, this pointer
   • Function/operator overloading, copy ctor/assignment
   • Template basics, STL containers, lvalue references
   • Basic I/O: cin/cout
2. Computer Systems Basics: learn Computer Systems: A Programmer’s Perspective (CSAPP). CMU has online course for this book, and see CSDIY for details.
3. Data Structure and Algorithm Basics: any basic data structure course. Personally, I recommend learning Data Structure from Deng Junhui in Tsinghua Unviersity (including Volume I and Volume II, and in Chinese!). The provided link is 2026 course on XuetangX, and this course will be renewed every year. So if the link above corresponds to a paid course, just search “数据结构” on that platform to find latest free one.

English: CET4 is enough.

Course Schedule

• Overall schedule: 16 chapters total, 150 min each on average (equivalent to 3-credit course). Note that the Chapter 16, as the supplementary chapter, has a bunch of topics, so it’ll be longer though not being core content.
• Homework: Code examples and homework provided after each lecture. Since lecture 5, most of homework is provided with answers.
• Others: Online course is taught in Chinese while slides are in English. Errata and supplementary will be given in comments of the video or homework (in Chinese), so don’t forget to check them.

Syllabus

The online videos are uploaded to bilibili.

Recommended Tools

• Cpp Conference: lectures on C++.
• cppreference: wiki on C++.
• C++ standard draft.
• Compiler Explorer: check assembly, compilation and execution results online on different compilers.
• cppinsights: unveal real code behind syntax sugar.
• Quick C++ Benchmark: online performance profiling.
• English communities like stackoverflow.
• Chinese communities like Zhihu, bilibili and cnblogs.

Acknowledgement

Thanks for Gu Yu, my senior in PKU, proofread‌s part of the slides.