- Programming languages involve tradeoffs between speed, simplicity, completeness, expressiveness, and safety; perfect languages don't exist.
- Modern C++ (2017 era) is complex but offers a simpler subset that benefits C programmers without using all features.
- The series focuses on C++14 (with some C++17) and selectively covers useful parts like sorting, strings, classes, smart pointers, lambdas, and containers.
- Topics intentionally excluded include multiple inheritance, template metaprogramming, iostreams (except output), locales, user-defined literals, and exotics.
- The goal is to help C programmers consider modern C++ for new projects by learning incrementally, 'one line at a time'.