Learning from C++ Juniors’ Mistakes

Junior C++ developers make mistakes, that’s quite natural. We aim for educating them to avoid those mistakes while in parallel be able to catch those mistakes in code reviews or with automated tools. Using a case study, we identify typical mistakes made by beginners when working on a C++ project, accompanied with a code example. The mistakes include use of unnecessary C++ tools which makes the code more cumbersome, not using proper C++ tools by "reinventing the wheel" and pure bad design and implementation. Analyzing these mistakes draws conclusions on things you need to focus on when conducting code review and techniques that mentors can use to help the beginners quickly improve their skills.