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Sams Teach Yourself C++ in 21 Days (4th Edition)

Sams Teach Yourself C++ in 21 Days (4th Edition)

List Price: $34.99
Your Price: $22.60
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: One word, EXCELLENT!
Review: "Teach Yourself C++ in 21 days" taught me a HUGE amout of information. And the incredible thing is, I understood every single word of it. Jesse Liberty descibes some of the most advanced subjects of C++ in a way I could easily understand. Jesse Liberty breaks the complex language of C++ down into easy steps that take you day by day which quickly lead to having a soild foundation of programming skills and knowledge. I recommend this way book to ANYONE who wishes to learn how to program in C++ and have the skills for programming real world C++ applications. Thank you Jesse Liberty for writing a book that I will cherish and hold on to for the rest of my programming years.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: GREAT BOOK FOR ANYONE LEARNING C++ IN 21 DAYS!!!
Review: I went through this book over the summer in 17 days. Everything in this book is easy to keep up with, but doesn't drag the whole concept around for too long. I'd recomend this book to anyone with the urge to learn C++.

You'll be glad you did!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: It got me started in C++ and it is great!
Review: This was the first book that I read of C++. I have seven years' experience in BASIC and about a year's experience of C. The book went thoroughly and quickly, explaining everything well. I would recommend it to anyone who has a little prior knowledge of programming and would like to get into C++.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Great way to quickly learn C++
Review: This book presents a clear picture of concepts in the C++ languange. The examples and explanations are easy to understand. I won't be an expert C++ programmer overnight, but this book will help me get to that point a lot quicker.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Good, but...
Review: I suppose it's a little pointless to review this book now--but who cares. It's great for those familiar with programming (but with no C++ experience) but absolute beginners should look elsewhere. There have been two printings since this one and I hope SAMs has taken the initiative to fix the multitude (like in every listing) of errors that plagued the book. I learned C++ from this book (or began to anyway) but because of its extremely poor quality, I'll never buy another one from SAMs again.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Well written, well paced
Review: It's been nearly 15 years since I really had my nose in a programming textbook, so I broke the binding with some apprehension. But to my pleasure I found this book easy to read, light and even humorous at times. There is enough substance for one with programming experience, yet not too much for a newbie. Although challenging (don't think you'll get through it in 21 days!) I think it well paced and well laid out.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A fine tutorial of the C++ language
Review: At the beginning I had a very good time with the book. Liberty presented ideas in an easy-to-understand and clear way. But when I proceeded to chapter 10 "Advanced Functions," I was suddenly in fog. There wasn't a clear explaination of the topic and that made me a little worried. Worse, many chapters on inheritance were also confusing. I read those chapters several times and understood them anyway. Finally I felt better as I read the last few chapters as the clearity came back.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Pretty good but spotty. Not for a first time programmer.
Review:

I had high hopes when I bought this book and while I'm not as pleased with the contents and format as I had hoped, it has been helpful.

My principal complaints and praises are these:

1. Though Mr. Liberty says that the 2nd edition corrects many errors from the 1st, I still found many. In fact, the errata list I downloaded was not even complete or correct. It didn't even match the pages in the book correctly.

2. Mr. Liberty states that the examples are updated to the latest C++ standards. Not quite. For example, I found that because of a change in the C++ standards adopted a couple of years ago, variables are no longer in scope outside of the statement (An 'if' statement for example.) where they were defined. Nevertheless, many examples (in source code downloaded from the SAMS WWW site) that did not compile because of this outdated methodology. Minor perhaps but annoying when it is such a fundamental aspect and found in so many places in the sample code.

3. Very poorly sequenced. There are many, many places where new terms and concepts are mentioned BEFORE being defined or explained. This mislocation even spans chapters! The "New Term" notations help but often simply make the bad sequencing more apparent. Why not define the terms/concepts BEFORE their use? I know, there is a chicken and egg dilemma at times but that is not usually the case here and even when it is, it could be handled much better. A glossary would be very useful for example.

4. Several important concepts are poorly or inadequately explained. I'm a 'C' programmer with over 18 years in the industry and I never thought I would complain about too many examples in a document. In this case however, the reliance on code to make a point makes the book very tedious. This is especially true since rather than simply embedding explainations as comments in the code, the supporting explainations follow later, necessitating a lot of page flipping. There are many missed opportunities to save thousands of words and hours of trudging through code with a few simple graphic explanations. Yet more proof that truly, a picture is worth a thousand words.

The good points:

1. Mr. Liberty is concerned with more than teaching a computer language. There is more in this book about good programming principles than in many others.

2. The book is fairly thorough in covering both 'C' and C++. As mentioned before, some of the concepts could be better or more completely explained but most of them are at least introduced.

To sum it up, look long and hard at all the alternatives before buying this book, especially if you are new to programming. It is supposed to be for beginning programmers but there are a few suppositions of prior knowledge that will leave many a novice scrambling for other sources.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: THE BEST C++ I'VE EVER READ!!!!!
Review: This book gave me a whole new concept of C++. Now I can program my computer the way I want it to be. And I'm ahead of all my friends. If only he wrote a book called, "Teach Yourself Game Programming with C++ in 21 Days." Or maybe a book on C++ artificial intelligence.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Ever hear of the fable of the blind men and the elephant?
Review: I read this book over the course of several months, and then went back and reread it. I then worked through the exercises. I had previously taken a C course and read a self-instructed C book independently. I would agree that it is excellent for beginnners from the viewpoint of teaching the basic C++ language syntax and constructs. The style is both informal and easy to read.

One problem I experienced, however, was that much of the source code (from the book) included errors, some of which made the later chapters difficult indeed. Don't get me wrong; finding and fixing the errors was educationally beneficial, but it often obscured the usage of some of the more advanced OOP features. Those features also seemed to receive only a cursory treatment.

My main disappointment was that by the end of the book, I knew what each of the more advanced OOP features could do independently, but not enough to combine them into more complex, real-world programs. I think that other readers, much like the blind men, may understand the individual parts, but the pachydermal strength of OOP is not truly done justice, although it may well be beyond the scope of 21 days of material.


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