Rating:  - Excellent book for learning C++
Although the pace may not be easy for someone completely new to programming, this an exellent book for learning the C++ language. It now introduces the C++ standard library early in the book, before getting into object-oriented programming and C++ class design and implementation. This makes it easier to start writing useful programms sooner. Organization, clarity and style are outstanding.
Rating: - Best C++ book in my personal collection
In the last year i had two computer science exams about C++ programming.
I had never seriously studied programming before, so i was surprised with almost infinite potentialities of this language.
However, modern C++ is a lot different from the one most books try to teach: i've got a lot of C++ books like Deitels' and Schlidt's, but all they offer is a overview of a "pre-standard-like" C++: a lot of chapters and exercises on arrays, pointers, C-like-strings, just like this was the core of the modern C++ language.
This book focuses instead on the things a C++ programmer should know today, his swiss-army-knife: the STL and the standard library. The book introduces vectors and strings first, then compares them with old-fashioned arrays/pointers and char*s.
This is not a book about introducing "new stuff" into the C programming language, but about learning C++ like a whole new language, thus changing the way you approach programming (a lot of other books introduces STL only in the last 2 o 3 chapters!).
The only thing i disliked about the book, funny to say, is that while not too long (the fourth edition is about 800 pages long), the book is so full of contents that a newcomer may probably find it overwhelming.
Not only it introduces classes and STL in the first chapters, but it also goes in a much deeper level of detail than other books, so if you haven't any programming (and, maybe a little C++) experience, you'll probably be going "back and forth" searching for concepts and explaination you didn't care too much about (like the notions about constructors given in the first chapter, wich would seem rather abstract if you don't know how a data structure is realized).
Anyway, this is one of the best programming books i've ever read: if you are a computer science student, a programmer who wants to learn C++ or a C++ programmer who wants to really understand "what's behind the scenes", you have to buy this!
If you are a novice in programming, this book could make you started with programming in the best way and introduce you to the best programming practices, but it can also scare you in the beginning, so you'd probably want to start elsewhere (probably with Accelerated C++, or C++ Primer Plus).
Rating: - 4th edition more pedagogic than the 3rd edition
First, I own the 2nd, 3rd and 4th editions of this book. I originally learned C++ from the 2nd edition in the early 90's (it's out of date). Later I bought the 3rd edition when the C++ standards were updated. Now, after a few years away from C++, I find that I have to catch up with the latest and greatest C++ idioms, methods, convential wisdoms, whatever.
I started reading the 3rd edition and after 300 pages it became very obvious the 3rd edition was very encyclopaedic in its coverage and with its examples. The 3rd edition is an excellent reference, but for learning you need a month or more to read through the 1100+ pages. I don't have that much time. I needed something more concise -- so I bought the 4th edition.
The 4th edition is still 800 pages in length, but the information density per page is less. The examples are cut back, but they are still good, and tables are used to summarize different choices or variants to C++ syntax or libraries. These changes make the book vastly superior for learning C++ (relearning?). The examples demonstrate how to use the language and the tables convey the required information precisely. What a fantastic difference.
The 4th edition does have a different organization, that is, the order the language is introduced has changed. The emphasis is on introducing templates and generic programming much earlier than before. The section on OO design and programming is excellent, but the emphasis on templates changes its relative importance.
This may sound strange, but use the 4th edition to learn and use the 3rd edition as a reference.
Rating: - Balanced and comprehensive, excellent general reference
A great improvement over previous editions - presents a very good balance of introductory and advanced topics. It served my purpose extremely well as a refresher to C++ after several years. Certainly, Stroustrup offers better coverage of more complex topics - however, as a general purpose textbook, this is good. Indispensable to me, more so than the second edition that I was still using. If you are a beginner or an exprerienced C++ programmer looking for a refresher, this is a good book. If you rate yourself as an advanced C++ programmer, you can save it for that day when you start to forget things!
Rating: - The book is great, BUT
yeah, may be it's primer, but it's definitely not the book to start learning about programming on the whole and about C++ in particular, because as I can see authors sometimes make assumptions they shouldn't have made (all of them are in the first part of the book). And for such a misleading title I should've given it 4 stars , but I can't.
Pick up "C++ Primer Plus" by Stephen Prata as first programming book, as one of reviewers has already mentioned. I should say, that if I read this book instead of Prata's, I'd tear it to shreds and curse the authors (kidding).
Plus I think the reader should take some time programming or looking at other people's code before reading this book, because only in this case 'notes' and 'key concepts' put in this book can be appreciated (the beginner just wouldn't consider them important and therefore wouldn't remember).
|
