Rating: 
Summary: Poorly organized
Review: You can get by with this book (I own the 3rd edition and was assigned a much earlier one in a C++ class I took in 1995).The book's main flaw is that it relies on examples so heavily that it's very difficult to use as a reference. While I realize the book was not written as a pure reference, the authors could isolate reference text (definitions and so on) from example text and make the book much more readable.
Rating: 
Summary: Stay away from this one
Review: Unless you are going to write a C++ compiler this is not the book for you. I have 20 years experience programming including Java and C and by the time I was half way through the book I could bearly understand him. Clearly there are better choices.
Rating:
Summary: A reference and a uncomprehendible one. Pure deceit.
Review: This book is reference and NOT a primer. Not for beginners. Mostly for C software developers who need a reference/tutorial. The Authors of this book got exactly what they wanted .
They Claimed their book as a PRIMER for beginners and ripped alot of people off expecting a book just for beginners. The Authors need to be SUED for the title. It's pure deceitful advertising . Buy Stroustrups book if you want to impress your friends or can really understand it. Stroustrups and this book are both unreadable references.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent Book
Review: .... A great book on C++,but if you are new to C++ programming language you have to start with another book.This book gives evrything about C++ Language.One speciality of this book is that
it constructs your logic in Object Oriented way.If you are a experinced C programmer and want to go for Object Oriented Programming model,this is the right & best book.It Construct your logic in Object Oriented way.Anybody who wants to become a expert in Object Oriented programming model technology ..pls read it.
Rating:
Summary: Meant for the Intermediate to Advanced C++ Programmer
Review: This book is NOT for the beginner!!! In that respect, its title is misleading to intimate that it should be a "first time" type book. IT IS NOT!! This book is for the intermediate to advanced C++ application developer. To really get the maximum benefit from reading it, will first require that you have a good basic knowledge of the language under your belt. With that, you are then poised to reap the best this book has to offer, and it DOES offer a LOT. It delves deeper into the syntactical construct and nuances of the language (which is why it's not for beginners), technically explaining (and demonstrating) a wider aspect of the language's purpose and implementation. This means (for example), even though you might have known what the use of the "const" keyword is for, Lippman makes sure the reader understands that it's not just to prevent an object or a function it qualifies, from getting modified, but that ANY ATTEMPT to have even a pointer to a non-constant object, address a constant object, will result in a compile-time error. This is just an example of where he takes you behind the scene. In other words, he realizes you already know what's happening up front, and now he's revealing additional refinements of the language regarding that specific part of it. Sure, there are some errors in the book, both typographical and technical, but Lippman is not spoon-feeding anybody, and it's precisely because you're not a beginner why you'll most likely discover the errors if not just by reading, then certainly by experimenting with the many examples he has given. If you are a serious developer, then you'll certainly want to put what he's saying to the test, which is how your knowledge will grow and expand. By all means, this does not excuse him from such errors, but taken in context, they are NOT a reflection of any limitation on his part to the language, but more due to other constraining details that goes into writing a book of this magnitude. Repeatedly, one can observe the author was trying to cover as much ground about the language (in depth) without leaving any stone unturned, which sometimes makes what he's saying, totally incoherent. It is only when you stop to digest, or slow down your intake of what you're reading, that upon analysis you are forced to parse his statements in order to assimilate the meaning. Take this as an example. In Section 7.9 where he's explaining "Pointers to Functions" (clearly this is NOT something for beginners), he breaks down the entire concept into several subsections (just to give you an example of how much ground there is to cover on this topic) beginning with "The 'type' of a Pointer to Function," then on to "Initialization and Assignment," followed by "Arrays of Pointers to Functions", until he reaches "Parameters and Return Types" where (by this time) the reader will have either grasped the gist of the subject matter, or will have to reread the foregoing sections, because now Lippman is taking the reader to a higher level. He's telling the reader that "Because a function parameter can be a 'pointer to function', we can pass a 'pointer to function' as an argument." BUT, he cautions, "A function parameter never has a function type. Instead, a parameter of function type is automatically converted to the type, 'pointer to function'." Clearly, these are NOT concepts meant to be served to the beginner. Personally, I have read this book so thoroughly, I can say there is hardly anything in the Language Standards that Lippman did not try to cover (perhaps some more than others), and nowhere is this more obvious than in the sheer size of the book; over 1200 pages. Where else can you find a source pertaining to the rules, syntax, constructs and explanation of the language, other than the actual Standard itself, and to read that (even for an advanced practitioner like myself) would be a torture of unimaginable proportion. If you are at the point in your understanding of the language where you are ready to advance to the next higher level, you will need to read (and reference) this book in order to pack down more solidly your knowledge of C++. After you've done that, then you're ready for those other books that will sharpen your skills and expertise (even more), like "Effective C++" and "More Effective C++" by Scott Meyers. Without that SOLID grasp from reading and understanding Lippman, other books like those from Meyers' will be less "Effective."
Rating: 
Summary: poorly organized book
Review: I had to use this book for a graduate course in C++ programming. Two main facts were immediately apparent to me when I started using it: first, it contained a lot of fine ideas on the C++ language. Secondly however, it was so poorly organized that I had to settle for a substitute (Tony Gaddis's "Starting out With C++"). The authors could have done a much better job.
If you are new to C++, don't go near this book; it will make you hate the language.
Rating: 
Summary: Very friendly book on C++
Review: C++ Primer is very easy to understand but if you are new to C++, don't panic if you get confused by the first two chapters.
If you already know C++, you'll learn a lot from this book. But unfortunately it's not as comprehensive as I expected.
Rating:
Summary: Unfortunately, the best single C++ book
Review: The 1st edition of this book (and 2nd, which was merely a corrected 1st edition) was a marvel of efficiency. In 600 pages, it relayed a remarkably complete, clear picture of the C++ language an effective C++ idioms. C++ has changed and significantly expanded since 1991 (templates, anyone?), and the _C++ Primer_ hasn't kept pace. This edition has ballooned to 1237 much more dense pages. Despite this, it *is* still the best single C++ book for me. It is usable as a primer on C++ (if the reader has programmed before, and with careful reading). If you're new to programming, don't start with C++. If you're convinced you want to do so, find an easier book (maybe the author's _Essential C++_, though I haven't used that book myself), and realize that C++ is a big, complicated language that was built by committee and so takes the 'everything and the kitchen sink' approach. Good languages often seem quite natural to use because they are structured for that style of usage. C++, and particularly ANSI C++, is structured to be the maximally versatile Swiss Army Knife of languages, and so its structure is never particularly elegant for any of its uses. Sadly, neither is this book which given its depth and 1998 copyright should cover the Standard Template Library (STL) in mind-crushing detail.
Rating:
Summary: Good book, not for dummies
Review: I am an experience java programmer who decided to learn C++. This is the book I bought after doing a good market research. This book is a good read, but I suspect it may not be very easily paced for absolutely novices. For experienced programmers, this is number one choice, I guess.
Rating:
Summary: A Desperately Bad Book
Review: When I was first using C++, I figured, "This book isn't working for me because I lack knowledge of C and overall programming rules." However, now that I know enough C++ to get me by, I realize that this book couldn't have worked for me at any point. It's 1300 pages long, so forget reading it sequentially, so one is left using the thing as a reference guide. But the amount of time I have spent wading through, for example, its abysmally bad section on class inheritance ("This, boys and girls, is a subclass. We'll just draw a fancy picture, but not tell you how to use them; we'll leave that as an exercise for the student") is enough for me to have authored a better work. And I don't believe I have encountered a worse index in any reference work ever: indiscriminate when it's not just plain wrong, finding an entry on a subject you're interested in is cause for celebration, while finding actual information on that topic within the book proper should merit a trip to Vegas. This book, unsatisfied with making me hate itself, made me hate the entire C++ language. Do not buy this book; buying a reference guide on maintaining your muffler is likely to teach you more about the language.
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