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Summary: Book, Book, my sore eyes longed to see you...
Review: For the longest time, I was hoping to see an introductory book that would teach the new, modern C++. Such a book would start from concepts, not from bits, and would use and teach the standard library as an integral part of the language. That's why I was very happy to get acquainted to Andrew and Barbara's new book. It conveys the reader the right look and feel of C++ - an elegant, powerful, and fun to use language. For example, Accelerated C++ introduces pointers in Chapter 6. By that time, they already have covered a lot of ground by using standard library's containers and iterators. Pointers come naturally into play as a machine-level incarnation of the iterator concept. Way much easier to understand than any other presentation of C++ pointers I've seen. The writing is crisp and impeccable and the book organization is great. I recommend this book as THE book for studying C++.
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Summary: With a little support or background, it will work for you
Review: The modern IT worker understands velocity and acceleration quite well. With everything moving at speeds nearly impossible to comprehend, it is difficult to keep up, and the pace of change continues to increase. In this environment where rushing is the norm, your best allies are training materials that are short, effective and easy to understand.
This book, designed to teach the basics of C++, will work, but some background is needed to make that happen. The authors choose some very good examples and do cover the more complex areas of the language such as abstract classes, inheritance, dynamic binding, memory management, templates and overloading. The approach will work, but only if you either have had significant exposure to the terminology of object-oriented programming or have a reference nearby and consult it regularly. It is difficult to conceive of someone with little experience in the principles of object-oriented programming reading only this book and coming away with the desired expertise.
However, with that caveat, the authors do succeed in distilling down the essence of C++ into 300 pages. You will not become an expert, that would probably take closer to two thousand pages, but you will have enough knowledge to take the first steps in using C++ effectively.
Subject to the qualifications listed above, this book can be used to learn the basics of C++ in a hurry, which is probably the only way anyone learns it any more.
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Summary: good introductory book
Review: a good introductory book to c++. for beginners, not for pros. as the book's title says: Practical Programming by Example.
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Summary: The BEST introduction book on C++ yet!
Review: I have nothing to say about this book, except, among hundreds of C++ "intro-level" books available, this book is simply "the best". Why? The answer is easy: Because it teachs C++ the way C++ should be taught. Why re-invent the wheel if there are a lot of wheels available for you to use? Why learn to do things in "the hard way" if there is a lot easier ways to do? C++ should be taught from its C-inherited no-more. In C, we used to do something in "the hard way". For example, just to use string efficiently, one would need to understand pointer properly, since C-string is pointer to char (char*). Just to dynamically store some instances of the object (to store the objects "as needed"), one would need to know how to manipulate pointers, which always lead to problems and confusion, to imprement the dynamic container. And that's what almost all other C++ books try to teach you "first". And they will teach you what should be taught ealier "later". You, by that way, it takes longer to be productive, or even to be an able programmer. Then, how C++ should be taught? Bjarne Stroustrup, the father of C++, said clearly in one of his paper, named "Learning Standard C++ as a new Language", (available in his homepage) something like "Learning a programming language should support the learning of effective programming techniques. My favourite approach is to start teaching the basic language (variables, declaration, loop, etc...), together with a good library". And this is exactly the approach taught by this book. I, personally, agree with the previous reviewer that with the approach used in this book, pointer and array are easier to understand than learning from the traditional approach. Learning C++ from its standard library aspect can make you a productive programmer in much much shorter time than learning from the traditional approach, which begin with C-subset, and many programming techniques that you have to "unlearn" as you progress on. In case that you're wondering how much you will learn from a book of this size. All I can tell you is, more than you can ever imagine. However, you will have to concentrate on what it's saying. And then, after you finish this book, you will have no (or almost no) problem when moving on to the more difficult (say, more advanced) books like those by Stroustrup, Lippman, Musser & Saini, Austern, Josuttis ... etc (all are my personal favourites). The wheels had been invented. So why not just use them? In short, this book is nothing more than the BEST book on introductory C++ ever written, period.
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Summary: A diffrent type of monster
Review: Unlike most programming books these days, this one doesn't start out explainging basic concepts, it jumps right into programming, explaning the code as needed, not just throwing the explanations at you and giving you examples. It gives you an example and tells you what, what does, so this is the perfect book for someone that already is programmin and would like to get some more on C++. Great book. Defenitly recomend it for anyone, even a begienner. I started out with the knowlege of Perl first, so C++ is kind of ackward, and old generation to me, but it's more useful. Buy it, you'll love it.
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Summary: Excellent C++ textbook
Review: Andrew Koenig and Barbara Moo have written a terrific introductory book on C++ here. They teach you C++ by presenting programming problems to be solved, and introducing the exact language features you need to solve them, one right after the other. Very early on you find yourself using the power and simplicity of the STL to write some pretty cool programs. The programming examples are very interesting, and this book has the clearest exposition of the workings of pointers and arrays that I've ever seen. (In fact, they introduced iterators earlier in the book when using the STL, and I think introducing them in this order makes their discussion of pointers a lot easier to understand than it would be otherwise.) They eventually cover all the features of the language that a person realistically needs to accomplish just about anything, the discussion of each feature always motivated by an actual need for it to solve a problem at hand. I'm glad I've got this one on my shelf!
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Summary: Refreshingly new and very good indeed!
Review: This is a nice change for the better! Instead of introducing the basics and then going on to class design, inheritance, and polymorphism, Andrew and Barbara delay things such as class design until the latter part of the book and instead launch straight into use of the STL, illustrated with practical examples of how to use STL containers and algorithms to solve programming problems. As far as I am concerned, this is definitely a change for the better. Most programming projects I see heavily abuse inheritance to do things that would have better been done with templates and, as a rule, most C++ projects continue to ignore the STL, even though it is probably the most fundamental contribution to C++ programmer productivity in years. Following this book, readers are encouraged to use STL from the word go, which is as it should be. The language and flow of the book are excellent, and the presentation is very lucid. What really shines through is that both authors are experts on the topic and really know what they are talking about. The explanations of language features are complete, correct, and precise. There is none of the muddled exposition that I find in so many other C++ books. The teaching experience that Andrew and Barbara have gained over the years is truly reflected in the prose. The book anticipates many questions and typically answers them just at the right time, namely, when the question is just about to pop into the reader's head. Information density of the book is high. A lot of information is packed into few words, so the reader has to concentrate on what is being said, and skipping paragraphs is not something that I would recommend. The concentration, however, is well repaid by the large amount of solid knowledge that is imparted: I believe that no other C++ book manages to convey as much information per page as this one. To me, the target audience are people who have done some programming in other languages and do not know C++. (I would not recommend the book for people who have never programmed before, unless they are very determined readers.) More seasoned C++ programmers also will get good value. And, if you are an experienced C++ programmer, but haven't much used the standard library up to now, there is still plenty of meat to be found: there are enough gems of advice in the book for it appeal to people who have considerable C++ experience. This is an excellent effort from two experts in the field. I recommend it!
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Summary: A fundamentally new approach that works!
Review: Most programming language books focus on the detailed machinery in the language (syntax, etc.), but that's not what you need to be productive writing programs. In the case of C++, most of the useful stuff is in the library (I know, I helped wok on the Standard library ;-). This book starts with that useful stuff first, and introduces the language details as needed. This is a great approach, especially for those who need to write working, _useful_ programs in C++. A great idea, and very effective! Get a copy of this book, and see for yourself.
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Summary: The practice of effective C++ programming
Review: This is a first-rate introductory text on C++. It takes a top-down "learning-by-doing" approach that I wish more programming texts would apply. Compared to two good alternatives, C++ Primer and The C++ Programming Language, this book is more concerned about how you go about solving problems using C++. This book doesn't present C++ in a neutral way. It clearly has the goal of presenting a large valuable subset of C++, plus a practical approach to solving programming tasks in C++. This is particularly evident in the ordering of the material. The total subset presented is not much smaller than what I use as a professional C++ programmer. The text is correct, the words make sense, there is a flow of thought you can follow; the usual Koenig/Moo qualities.
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Summary: C++ done right
Review: C was a great advance over assembly language programming. C++ was a great enhancement to C. Both C and C++ are, however, low level languages, offering great power and flexibility, at the expense of risks analogous to juggling straight razors. Adepts of these languages have necessarily worked hard to master them but it seems the difficulty of such mastery pervades the approach of most textbooks, subtly perpetuating a fundamentally low level perspective. The recent incorporation of the standard library into the C++ standard changes things enormously for the better for people who want to access the power of C++ without the overhead of having to reinvent the wheel at each turn. Accelerated C++ is the first book I have seen that sheds completely the low level heritage of C and offers instead a straight ahead introduction to the ease with which we can get things done using C++ and its standard library features. If you do not know C, you have the advantage of being spared its necessarily low level approach and the attendant tendency to view C++ from a low-level perspective. The wizards who have created C++ and the standard library components certainly need that perspective. For the rest of us, this book, more than any other I have seen, shows that perspective to be entirely unnecessary to "get things done, and well" in C++. The writing is masterful, the discussions are helpful and complete at each turn, and the result is the most effective introduction to C++ I know of. Without question, this book is *the* introduction to C++ I would recommend.
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