Structured and Object-Oriented Techniques: An Introduction Using C++

Trying to ramp up to C++, this book is a really good start. Take the time to do the exercises. That is how the information "sticks". It is written for someone who does not have much experience or understanding of programming. I started with Sam's Teach Yourself Beginning Programming to get a strong base, then went to this book, which follows nicely to the Beginning Programming book.

In many ways, this book is a very nice introductory text on C++. It is friendly and well-written, with detailed explanations, lots of examples, and graduated exercises that help you learn the material through practice. Why then does the author have to ruin such a nice book by using nonstandard terminology?I refer primarily to his perverse substitution of "data class" for "data type" throughout the text. Since Staugaard, the author of the text, quotes Stroustrup, the author of C++, Staugaard must surely know that a type is a "concrete representation of a concept" and a class is a "user-defined type." "Enumerated data class", rather than "enum," is another term that makes me shudder. I presume Staugaard uses the term "class" for consistency, but I find myself doing constant translations of terminology in my head to bridge the gap between how I hear words used around me and how he uses them in the book. The book has a few other problems as well. In my edition, Chapter 9 is rife with typos, and Chapter 8 seems to contradict itself on the issue of whether or not the size of an array must be declared. Of course, my 1997 edition could not contain the latest information on the 1998 ratification of the Standard C++ Library.Despite the problems, I like this book. The early explanations on analyzing problems and the later explanations on sorting and searching algorithms do the best anybody can hope for with these complicated issues. I sincerely hope that later editions of the text will deal with the negative issues that unfortunately do exist, and make a very enjoyable book on C++ even better.

Very readable with lots of examples and tips

Though not bad, but some of the explanantions are a bit confusing and the answers are not detailed enough for readers to understand fully.