Rating: 
Summary: unforgivable errors
Review: I picked up this book thinking it would be a quick way to renew my knowledge of C++. Unfortunately this book is not suitable for that purpose and is even worse for someone who is unfamiliar with C++. Inaccurate programming language books can be dangerous. A concise outline of the C++ programming language is a good idea for a book, but this book contains inaccurate descriptions of some simple and fundamental concepts in its opening pages.Page 4 describes how strings in C++ are zero terminated, but immediately slips up by saying that the string "a" requires two bytes because of the terminating `\n'. (It does require two characters of storage which on most machines is in fact 2 bytes but the second character is the terminating zero (`\0') as the book just described.) This may just be a typographical error but the subsequent example program confuses the issue further by printing the string length (strlen) of several strings but ignoring the size of (sizeof) these strings. Since strlen ignores the zero terminator when it counts the characters of a string - a fact that is not pointed out before or after this program - the example program fails to illustrate that strings are stored with zero terminators. Page 7 contains yet another misleading section. It says that C++ is an object-oriented programming language and uses the declaration of an int as an example of the creation of an object. Fundamental types like ints are not objects in the literal sense of the word. The author may be speaking generally but it is unnecessarily confusing. There is no need to mention objects in chapter 1 since he doesn't cover classes until chapter 8. The text of this book is presented in an attractive reader-friendly style with frequent headings and stylized text blocks to add interest to what can be a tedious topic. I'm happy to see this friendly presentation is not combined with a silly title that refers to the reader as a "dummy" or something similar. At 169 pages, the book is light-weight and very portable, but be aware that, as with most introductory books on programming languages, this book is not a comprehensive treatment of the language. Most of this book (up to page 97) covers the parts of C++ that it inherited from C. For most books, I would not write a review unless I had read the entire book. In this case, I stopped reading on page 12. (Page 10 doesn't clearly show that the decrement operator is two dashes, and Page 12 has yet another typo in a floating-point example.) I couldn't invest any more time reading a book with such frequent errors. Besides, as the book gets into more advanced topics, something might slip past me and I might retain inaccurate information. Some books will put a list of errors online, but I couldn't find one for this book. I should note that, besides typographical errors and perhaps, if taken literally, the statement that the declaration of an int creates an object, I haven't found any single sentence that is inaccurate. Taken as a whole, though, several sections in the first chapter are misleading and confusing. Combine this with frequent typographical errors and you end up with far too much confusion for a programming text. Schaum's Easy Outlines like Cliff notes, seem to be designed as quick study guides for students to enable them to cram for tests at the last minute. Perhaps the author feels that precise technical accuracy is not as important for this market segment. But today's students are tomorrow's professionals and programming errors can cost a great deal of money and even lives on occasion. Let's just hope that McGraw Hill doesn't come out with an Easy Outline for Neurosurgery. (They already have books on electricity, psychology, and many other important areas.)
Rating:
Summary: Schaum's Error Outline
Review: I picked up this book thinking it would be a quick way to renew my knowledge of C++. Unfortunately this book is not suitable for that purpose and is even worse for someone who is unfamiliar with C++. Inaccurate programming language books can be dangerous. A concise outline of the C++ programming language is a good idea for a book, but this book contains inaccurate descriptions of some simple and fundamental concepts in its opening pages. Page 4 describes how strings in C++ are zero terminated, but immediately slips up by saying that the string "a" requires two bytes because of the terminating '\n'. (It does require two characters of storage which on most machines is in fact 2 bytes but the second character is the terminating zero ('\0') as the book just described.) This may just be a typographical error but the subsequent example program confuses the issue further by printing the string length (strlen) of several strings but ignoring the size of (sizeof) these strings. Since strlen ignores the zero terminator when it counts the characters of a string - a fact that is not pointed out before or after this program - the example program fails to illustrate that strings are stored with zero terminators. Page 7 contains yet another misleading section. It says that C++ is an object-oriented programming language and uses the declaration of an int as an example of the creation of an object. Fundamental types like ints are not objects in the literal sense of the word. The author may be speaking generally but it is unnecessarily confusing. There is no need to mention objects in chapter 1 since he doesn't cover classes until chapter 8. The text of this book is presented in an attractive reader-friendly style with frequent headings and stylized text blocks to add interest to what can be a tedious topic. I'm happy to see this friendly presentation is not combined with a silly title that refers to the reader as a "dummy" or something similar. At 169 pages, the book is light-weight and very portable, but be aware that, as with most introductory books on programming languages, this book is not a comprehensive treatment of the language. Most of this book (up to page 97) covers the parts of C++ that it inherited from C. For most books, I would not write a review unless I had read the entire book. In this case, I stopped reading on page 12. (Page 10 doesn't clearly show that the decrement operator is two dashes, and Page 12 has yet another typo in a floating-point example.) I couldn't invest any more time reading a book with such frequent errors. Besides, as the book gets into more advanced topics, something might slip past me and I might retain inaccurate information. Some books will put a list of errors online, but I couldn't find one for this book. I should note that, besides typographical errors and perhaps, if taken literally, the statement that the declaration of an int creates an object, I haven't found any single sentence that is inaccurate. Taken as a whole, though, several sections in the first chapter are misleading and confusing. Combine this with frequent typographical errors and you end up with far too much confusion for a programming text. Schaum's Easy Outlines like Cliff notes, seem to be designed as quick study guides for students to enable them to cram for tests at the last minute. Perhaps the author feels that precise technical accuracy is not as important for this market segment. But today's students are tomorrow's professionals and programming errors can cost a great deal of money and even lives on occasion. Let's just hope that McGraw Hill doesn't come out with an Easy Outline for Neurosurgery. (They already have books on electricity, psychology, and many other important areas.)
Rating: 
Summary: Very good
Review: I recently bought this book to help recall
c++ I had taken earlier in my studies. It
is a very good book. Admittedly, it has
errors and the errata links provided in the book
have changed. If you would like to get the links,
go to http://www.richmond.edu/~hubbard
then click on the "books" link, then click on the
errata link below the picture of this book.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent text
Review: I used this book as a supplement to another text on C++. Then I discarded the other book and used this alone, for this was too good. As a student of programming, I find this text easy to use, and the practice sections are also wonderful. I recommend this book to any serious C++ learner.
Rating: 
Summary: NOT RECOMMENDED!
Review: I'm relatively new to C++ but even I was able to notice glaring mistakes from the first few pages onwards! For instance, the author gives the header files without the essential ".h" extension (ie. <iostream>). Such preprocessor directives will not be recognized by a compiler (at least not the three I tried it on). For a book proposing to teach a beginner how to program, this omission is unforgivable. For crying-out-loud, even the first ubiquitous "Hello World" program includes an odd piece to the cout statement, namely "std::" which seems to be useless and isn't even recognized by my compiler! Then the author goes on to tell us about using the line "using namespace std;" with programs using "cout". This is complete hogwash, no such thing is needed especially before the "main( )" line! Other header files are misnamed or use obsolete names. What the heck is <cmath> should it not be <math.h>? Also, some program examples are sloppily written and need to be heavily edited before they will run properly. Perhaps to an experienced programmer these errors are simply hurdles that are easily overcome. I say that for a beginner these are no mere hurdles but are crippling when faced with the already daunting task of learning a new language! Look, the price of this book may be lower than most of its competitors but the point is that you want to learn to program. Go elsewhere! Most of the generic C++ information is valid and the solved solutions will be of some use but these features will be found in many other texts -- texts that will also provide you with a reliable foundation of trustworthy material and competent exposition. I trust my implication is clear without being libel.
Rating:
Summary: unforgivable errors
Review: In addition to all the errors pointed out below, this book contains the most ridiculous error I've ever seen in a book from a major (or any) publisher. Specifically, the first page of chapter three is missing. Page 37 is the last page of chapter two. However, page 38, which should be the first page of chapter three, actually appears to be the second or third page of chapter 3. Instead of seeing the words "Chapter 3" in big black letters at the top (like all the other chapters) the reader immediately finds himself in section 3.4. As the final straw, in the preface the author gives three different web addresses to download errata and source code. NONE of them worked.
Rating:
Summary: Finally a "Beginning C++" book...
Review: It is about time- if you are like me you have surfed this site up and down for a book that will teach you C++... This IS IT! You still need a book to teach you how to program in the Visual C++ environment (or Borland, etc. etc.) but this book should be your starting point.
Rating:
Summary: Really very Informative
Review: It's a very informative book for which the students are eager for
Rating: 
Summary: OK, but check the errata first
Review: Like software that is rushed out the door full of bugs, this book seems to have been rushed to the printer and is REPLETE with errors. Granted, for $15 this book is still a bargain, but get the errata and go through it and correct all the errors first. In fact, it's got so many errors that I've pretty much set it aside until the second edition. Again, too many errors for the rather complicated examples he presents. Tread carefully...
Rating: 
Summary: Good book.
Review: Only if this book provided answers for all the questions it presented, it will be rated 5 stars!
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