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Using Cþþ

for Games

There are a variety of reasons why game programmers choose Cþþ. Here are a few:

n Its fast. Well-written Cþþ programs can be blazingly fast. One of Cþþs design goals is performance. And if you need to squeeze out even more performance from your programs, Cþþ allows you to use assembly languagethe lowest-level, human-readable programming languageto communicate directly with the computers hardware.

n Its flexible. Cþþ is a multi-paradigm language that supports different styles of programming, including object-oriented programming. Unlike some other modern languages, though, Cþþ doesnt force one particular style on a programmer.

n Its well-supported. Because of its long history in the game industry, theres a large pool of assets available to the Cþþ game programmer, including graphics APIs and 2D, 3D, physics, and sound engines. All of this pre-exiting code can be leveraged by a Cþþ programmer to greatly speed up the process of writing a new game.