You've admirably demonstrated the willingness to ask questions and learn in this thread, so I will try to rise to the occasion. I'm sorry to have been dismissiv

You've admirably demonstrated the willingness to ask questions and learn in this thread, so I will try to rise to the occasion. I'm sorry to have been dismissive with my original comment... please understand that C++ takes a lot of abuse from inexpert programmers on HN. For example, I never would criticize Ruby without spending more time than a semester's class using it. >> string token = ""; No, you aren't opening yourself to bugs, but it's unnecessary. A default constructed string is already == to "", token.empty() will return true. get_token_type() should likely take a const reference to the string, as all of the operations on the argument are const. I saw elsewhere in the thread where you said you've avoided const so far. Honestly, const may be C++'s greatest feature; it is far, far stronger than Java's "final" (or Scala's equivalent "val"). Looking over this code from a high level, I'm not sure why you have get_token_type() with a string parameter and a char parameter, when the former just forwards to the latter. Couldn't you have a second char variable, "prev_char" or "last_char", in get_next_token() and then detect when the type of it differs from the current char. Then the only operation you'd be doing on the string "token" is appending to it. I could be missing something, though, as I've only taken a quick glance through the code. I would generally agree with you that C++ is poorly taught almost everywhere. I think it was a win for CS departments when they transitioned from C++ to Java for introductory courses (and now many are transitioning to Python, also a win). I am fairly convinced that C++ programming is a craft and is therefore best learned under an apprenticeship model, of routine practice with expert review and guidance, coupled with some self-study.