For testing, I've used and like the googletest unit test framework: https://code.google.com/p/googletest/ https://code.google.com/p/googletest/ For C++ feature

For testing, I've used and like the googletest unit test framework: https://code.google.com/p/googletest/ https://code.google.com/p/googletest/ For C++ features, definitely check out lambda functions and the STL algorithms. With lambdas the standard algorithms are much, much easier to use. Herb Sutter in a talk said something to the effect of just forget the whole idea of function objects and use lambdas. Will also be useful to familiarize yourself with the C++11 pointer types, unique_ptr and shared_ptr. I try to never write code that invokes new/free directly and instead just use those pointer types. Also seconding picking up A Tour of C++ by Stroustrup. It's not a long read and will get you up to speed on all the important changes. I think it's a very exciting time to be using C++!