AI Assisted C and C++ Programming: Learn the Machine, Direct the Agent
Coding agents can write C and C++ in seconds. This book teaches you to understand that code well enough to own it.
Most programming books were written before AI agents existed. The rest teach prompting instead of programming. This textbook does both jobs: it teaches C and C++ from the machine up, then shows you how to put an agent to work without handing it your judgment.
Every chapter follows one loop: Predict, Write, Specify, Delegate, Audit, Defend. You predict what code will do before you run it, write the core yourself, specify the job in writing, delegate it to an agent, and audit the result with the compiler, sanitizers, debugger and tests. Then you defend it to someone who asks hard questions. The agent can write the code. Only you can own it.
What you will learn:
How the machine works: memory, the stack and the heap, pointers, and undefined behavior, shown on real hardware rather than described in the abstract.Modern C and C++: C17 and C++20, from first programs to resource ownership, classes, templates and the standard library.Evidence, not opinion: how to check code with warnings as errors, AddressSanitizer, UndefinedBehaviorSanitizer, Valgrind and gdb.Cost and performance: algorithmic complexity, data structures and measured trade-offs.Directing agents: how to write specifications, review generated code, catch fluent but wrong answers, and decide what never to delegate.Built for a semester
Twenty chapters in five parts follow a fifteen-week course. Your role with the agent grows as you do: it starts as a tutor that explains, becomes a pair programmer you check line by line, and ends as a team you coordinate on a capstone. One running project, a field-sensor station, grows through six programming assignments from a math library to a multi-module system. Every chapter has exercises, labs, and a work-log habit that builds calibration. Every listing in the book was compiled and run.
Who it is for:
First- and second-year students in computer science, engineering, and related fields; career changers who want real fundamentals; and instructors redesigning a programming course for the age of AI. No prior C experience is needed. A separate instructor's guide supports the course.
Written by Dr. Jerry A. Smith, an engineer, AI executive and educator who spent his career building software where mistakes are expensive and is now back in the classroom teaching it.
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