Thinking in C++: Introduction to Standard C++, Volume One

Since I'm reviewing both "Accelerated C++" as well as "Thinking in C++", I thought I'd post the review on both book links. There have already been excellent reviews of this book, but I would think the main reason people purchase these books is because they have an explicit purpose, which is to learn Standard C++. That being said, C++ is one of the most powerful and multi-faceted languages around, and no other language provides both high level abstractions and low level control in one programming language as C++. Because of these features, it is often opinied that C++ is too complicated, large and takes too long to master. While there are some merits to this criticism, many important real world systems are being bult with C++ and professional developers need to master the fundamentals of C++ now. With that in mind, and after spending (or wasting) much money on various books proclaiming to teach C++ from the ground up, it was not until reading Konig and Moo's "Accelerated C++" and Eckel's "Thinking in C++" and in that order, that I finally "got it". Why I emphasize "in that order" in the last paragraph, is due to the methodologies used to teach C++ by ACPP and TICPP, and due to this, its best to read ACPP first, then TICPP for the most effective learning. Here's my reasons: ACPP teaches C++ in a top down fashion. What I mean by this, is that the higher level Standard Libraries are integrated right from the start to teach programming contructs such as looping, selection and decisions making using library facilities such as , , and . The Standard is utilized from chapter zero, and relieves much of the burden of C strings and all the low level details one would have to know to use them properly. This can be especially burdensome to the beginner. As important as the container classes are to the Standard library, are the algorithms used with them. ACPP ulitizes these as well, and from chapters 0 to 7, the student is taught to use the common algorthms such as sort(), copy(), find() and accumulate(). By teaching these features right from the beginning, the reader is able to write some non-trivial programs without having to wade through the typical and troublesome C features typically taught in other books. Thus, by the time the Reader reaches the second half of the book (chapters 8-16), s/he is ready to understand how to build their own user defined types, and other important topics such as pointers, memory management, classes, as well as object oriented and generic programming. In contrast, TICPP teaches C++ from a more traditional bottom up approach. Throughout the book, the assumption is that the Reader is comming to C++ from a C background. For example, throughout the book starting from chapter 4, Eckel demonstrates a Stash and Stack application, developed first as a "better C", then throughout the book adds features to them such as grouping data structures with the functions that act on them in the form of classes. The concepts of constr

I'm a Computer Science minor who mainly programmed in Pascal but had an object oriented background to some extent by programming on MUSHes (text based role playing games where anyone can create objects, and place code on them). Obviously the syntax was quite different, but some of the 'systems' coded on these games are quite complex, so I was at least somewhat prepared to learn the concepts of OOP. After picking up a basic primer on C++ (Waite's C++ Primer Plus) and working through it, I discovered that while I'd learned the syntax, my understanding on how C++ operated on an object oriented level was still somewhat weak (which isn't to say that I didn't like the book, in fact I gave it 5 stars as a primer). This isn't that surprising for me, the normal way I learn is to get the details, do the work and at some point in the future _something_ will trigger a 'aha!' in me and understanding will come. In Eckel's first descriptions of C++ as an Object Oriented language, that light came on. In particular, when he described how inheritance could be used to replace a switch statement. It was clearly stated and proved to be the norm throughout the book. Now I combine the two books, using Waite's for a first look at a concept, and following it up with Eckel for the 'understanding'.

It's hard to find a book that teaches you how to program or how to use your logic to write programss. this book describes the problem of programming in C++ in a complete different way than other c++ books. It doesn't list the keywords and the syntax of the language but rather introduce you to problems that any programmer using any language might face, and then give you the answer in C++. It was nice that you can write a C++ program just in the second chapter while understanding completely the meaning and the usage of keywords like "#include" and namespaces which you'll usually find in the last chapters of ordinary c++ books. so you'll get the feeling of how, why and where to use any part of c++ language not just knowing how to use it. Thanks to Bruce Eckel for providing the book completely online in his web site. that shows that he really cares to make people understand c++ programming not just making money out of publishing a book. I'll be more generous than him by buying the hardcopy of the book :-)

If you have some programming experience (in any language) and would like to learn C++ then this is the book! I had some procedural programming experience in Fortran, Pascal and C. I now wanted to learn OOP with C++. This book exceeded my expectations! I highly recommend this book to any novice, advance, and expert programmers wishing to learn C++! If you are new to programming (ie you never wrote a computer program) and would like to make C++ your first language then this book may be too advanced for you. Try "Object-Oriented Programming in C++" by Lafore. Lafore starts from ground zero in his book. Bruce Eckel assumes the reader of his book has some programming experience. Not a lot but some ...:)

This book is highly recommended! I've been trying for a while to teach myself C++ and object-oriented programming. I have a strong background in both C and COBOL so structured programming is firmly etched in my brain and has proved to be a difficult programming approach to get past. This was the first book on the subject that caused me to go "Ah! Now I get it!" more than once. The first chapter alone was worth the price of the book as it thoroughly explained OOP in a clear and concise manner. I read this book in its entirety online before it was published. The book was so good that I went ahead and purchased it so that I would have a hardcopy of this invaluable text as well as the online version. If you are an adept programmer looking to jump onto the OOP bandwagon, I can't think of a better book to get you there. Forget the "Dummies" and "21 Days" type books and get this one. You'll be glad you did. No other programming book I've read has advanced my skills as far as this one. Many thanks to Bruce for providing the definitive C++ book.