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A name that all the book reviewers know SEGV has sent in a review of Scott Meyers' CD work Effective C++ CD. This is a stray from our normal book reviews, but figured people would appreciate seeing Scott Meyers' newest effort. Effective C++ CD author Scott Meyers pages publisher Addison Wesley rating 10 reviewer SEGV ISBN 0-201-60615-1 summary More than the sum of its hardcopy contents, this electronic resource earns a place on the programmer's bookshelf.

What to Expect?

I wasn't sure exactly what to expect. Subtitled "85 Specific Ways to Improve Your Programs and Designs," I knew this CD was an electronic version of Scott Meyers' already-published books, which I had previously reviewed for Slashdot:

• Effective C++ Second Edition
• More Effective C++

So I knew a priori that the content was excellent, but how would it be packaged and presented? Would it be Windows-only, forcing me to use it only at work as I run Linux at home? Would it be awkward to read onscreen? Would it be easily searchable? Could I annotate and print portions of it?

A Pleasant Surprise

I was pleasantly surprised when the package contained only a CDROM with these instructions printed on it:

To start, open INDEX.HTM
System requirements: Netscape Navigator 4.0+ (on Unix, Mac, or Win32) or Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0+ (on Win32 only).

So far so good! I had no problems using the CD with Communicator 4.5 on NT 4.0, and Communicator 4.04 on Debian GNU/Linux 2.0. Pretty much any modern browser with Java and JavaScript support should work. If you experience browser problems, the publisher provides helpful advice.

Initial Impressions

The CD has a nice look and feel to it. A navigation area is always present, acting as a control and providing a colour indication of where you are in the CD.

The text is decent to read and is true HTML, not merely raw text. It seems Meyers is conscious of the fact that an electronic version must add value to complement a printed version, otherwise it is not useful for its target audience.

Overall, I'd say this offering is a well though out and put together product, and not just a cheap knock-off.

Content

The CD (which itself has a printing number) contains the latest printings of the two books. It also boasts five magazine articles chosen by Meyers to augment the material in the books:

• "Exception Handling: A False Sense of Security" by Tom Cargill, from C++ Report Nov-Dec 1994.
• "Coping With Exceptions" by Jack W. Reeves, from C++ Report Mar 1996.
• "Exception-Safe Generic Containers" by Herb Sutter, from C++ Report Sep 1997, Nov-Dec 1997.
• "Counting Objects in C++" by Scott Meyers, from C/C++ Users Journal Apr 1998.
• "A First Look at C++ Program Analyzers" by Scott Meyers and Martin Klaus, from Dr. Dobb's Journal Feb 1997.

The first three are highly recommended for anyone dealing with exceptions. And of course, since any function may throw an exception, that means anyone writing C++! The object counting article elaborates on an idea from Effective C++ Item 14, illustrating some subtle language issues along the way. The final article outlines the state of the art in commercial static C++ analysis tools in September 1996.

Hyperlinks

The CD has links everywhere. Let me repeat: everywhere. In addition to hyperlinking existing references, Meyers added many cross references to the books and articles to further solidify the material.

Links to the internet at large are redirected through Addison Wesley Longman's online site so that they may stay current. And every single paragraph on the CD is anchored and hyperlinked, to facilitate electronic referencing and bookmarking.

Search Facilities

The CD provides two alternatives to your browser's "find in page" search facility. The first is a comprehensive merged index of the two books. The second is a search applet, modified from the Design Patterns CD search applet. It displays the resulting hits, with their enclosing paragraph for context if you select it. I found it easy to scan through hits until I found an interesting paragraph, then to jump to that document.

Although the search applet is aware of the entire CD, it appears that it can search only for one keyword. I'd really prefer more sophisticated search string options, such as multiple keywords, boolean operations, and perhaps even full regular expressions.

Configuration Facilities

For a set of web pages, the CD is impressively configurable. You can choose between five navigation area sizes, and five image sizes. You can view the books by item, by chapter, or in their entirety. And of course you can change text size in your browser.

Performance and Licensing

To implement the configurability options, there are actually five copies of each image and three copies of each book on the CD. Still, the total data size is a mere 16MB, which easily fits on a hard drive for greater performance and frees a CDROM drive for other use. This is also important because, given technology, actually altering the HTML files is really the only viable way of annotating the CD.

The CD comes with a single user license. You must contact the publisher for additional network license options. The short story is: you can make the CD available on a non-internet-accessible server to as many users as you have licenses, and you can purchase additional network licenses more cheaply the more you buy.

Summary

I've been using the CD both at work and at home for a couple of weeks, and I continue to find it a valuable resource. It easily subs in for my absent printed books, although of course I can't use it without a computer. The articles are useful, and the index and search applet allow me to quickly find what I am looking for.

Really, I have only three complaints:

• the search applet is somewhat limited
• there could be more magazine articles
• Scott's author photo is starting to look less like Eddie Van Halen and more like Gene Simmons

However, I don't think any of those detracts from the CD enough to reduce its 10/10 rating. In the worst case, since the CD is composed of text HTML files, you could apply other search utilities (eg, grep) to it.

The CD's online site has a demo, which I recommend trying if you want to get a feel for the CD before you purchase it. In addition to the general look and feel, navigation area, and search applet, it includes all of the magazine articles and a few of the books' items.

I'm happy with the CD, and recommend it as a professional resource.

To pick this up and help Slashdot, head over to Computer Literacy.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction
Effective C++ Second Edition
More Effective C++
Magazine Articles
Search the CD

A name that all the book reviewers know SEGV has sent in a review of Scott Meyers' CD work Effective C++ CD. This is a stray from our normal book reviews, but figured people would appreciate seeing Scott Meyers' newest effort. Effective C++ CD author Scott Meyers pages publisher Addison Wesley rating 10 reviewer SEGV ISBN 0-201-60615-1 summary More than the sum of its hardcopy contents, this electronic resource earns a place on the programmer's bookshelf.

What to Expect?

I wasn't sure exactly what to expect. Subtitled "85 Specific Ways to Improve Your Programs and Designs," I knew this CD was an electronic version of Scott Meyers' already-published books, which I had previously reviewed for Slashdot:

• Effective C++ Second Edition
• More Effective C++

So I knew a priori that the content was excellent, but how would it be packaged and presented? Would it be Windows-only, forcing me to use it only at work as I run Linux at home? Would it be awkward to read onscreen? Would it be easily searchable? Could I annotate and print portions of it?

A Pleasant Surprise

I was pleasantly surprised when the package contained only a CDROM with these instructions printed on it:

To start, open INDEX.HTM
System requirements: Netscape Navigator 4.0+ (on Unix, Mac, or Win32) or Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0+ (on Win32 only).

So far so good! I had no problems using the CD with Communicator 4.5 on NT 4.0, and Communicator 4.04 on Debian GNU/Linux 2.0. Pretty much any modern browser with Java and JavaScript support should work. If you experience browser problems, the publisher provides helpful advice.

Initial Impressions

The CD has a nice look and feel to it. A navigation area is always present, acting as a control and providing a colour indication of where you are in the CD.

The text is decent to read and is true HTML, not merely raw text. It seems Meyers is conscious of the fact that an electronic version must add value to complement a printed version, otherwise it is not useful for its target audience.

Overall, I'd say this offering is a well though out and put together product, and not just a cheap knock-off.

Content

The CD (which itself has a printing number) contains the latest printings of the two books. It also boasts five magazine articles chosen by Meyers to augment the material in the books:

• "Exception Handling: A False Sense of Security" by Tom Cargill, from C++ Report Nov-Dec 1994.
• "Coping With Exceptions" by Jack W. Reeves, from C++ Report Mar 1996.
• "Exception-Safe Generic Containers" by Herb Sutter, from C++ Report Sep 1997, Nov-Dec 1997.
• "Counting Objects in C++" by Scott Meyers, from C/C++ Users Journal Apr 1998.
• "A First Look at C++ Program Analyzers" by Scott Meyers and Martin Klaus, from Dr. Dobb's Journal Feb 1997.

The first three are highly recommended for anyone dealing with exceptions. And of course, since any function may throw an exception, that means anyone writing C++! The object counting article elaborates on an idea from Effective C++ Item 14, illustrating some subtle language issues along the way. The final article outlines the state of the art in commercial static C++ analysis tools in September 1996.

Hyperlinks

The CD has links everywhere. Let me repeat: everywhere. In addition to hyperlinking existing references, Meyers added many cross references to the books and articles to further solidify the material.

Links to the internet at large are redirected through Addison Wesley Longman's online site so that they may stay current. And every single paragraph on the CD is anchored and hyperlinked, to facilitate electronic referencing and bookmarking.

Search Facilities

The CD provides two alternatives to your browser's "find in page" search facility. The first is a comprehensive merged index of the two books. The second is a search applet, modified from the Design Patterns CD search applet. It displays the resulting hits, with their enclosing paragraph for context if you select it. I found it easy to scan through hits until I found an interesting paragraph, then to jump to that document.

Although the search applet is aware of the entire CD, it appears that it can search only for one keyword. I'd really prefer more sophisticated search string options, such as multiple keywords, boolean operations, and perhaps even full regular expressions.

Configuration Facilities

For a set of web pages, the CD is impressively configurable. You can choose between five navigation area sizes, and five image sizes. You can view the books by item, by chapter, or in their entirety. And of course you can change text size in your browser.

Performance and Licensing

To implement the configurability options, there are actually five copies of each image and three copies of each book on the CD. Still, the total data size is a mere 16MB, which easily fits on a hard drive for greater performance and frees a CDROM drive for other use. This is also important because, given technology, actually altering the HTML files is really the only viable way of annotating the CD.

The CD comes with a single user license. You must contact the publisher for additional network license options. The short story is: you can make the CD available on a non-internet-accessible server to as many users as you have licenses, and you can purchase additional network licenses more cheaply the more you buy.

Summary

I've been using the CD both at work and at home for a couple of weeks, and I continue to find it a valuable resource. It easily subs in for my absent printed books, although of course I can't use it without a computer. The articles are useful, and the index and search applet allow me to quickly find what I am looking for.

Really, I have only three complaints:

• the search applet is somewhat limited
• there could be more magazine articles
• Scott's author photo is starting to look less like Eddie Van Halen and more like Gene Simmons

However, I don't think any of those detracts from the CD enough to reduce its 10/10 rating. In the worst case, since the CD is composed of text HTML files, you could apply other search utilities (eg, grep) to it.

The CD's online site has a demo, which I recommend trying if you want to get a feel for the CD before you purchase it. In addition to the general look and feel, navigation area, and search applet, it includes all of the magazine articles and a few of the books' items.

I'm happy with the CD, and recommend it as a professional resource.

To pick this up and help Slashdot, head over to Computer Literacy.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction
Effective C++ Second Edition
More Effective C++
Magazine Articles
Search the CD

A name that all the book reviewers know SEGV has sent in a review of Scott Meyers' CD work Effective C++ CD. This is a stray from our normal book reviews, but figured people would appreciate seeing Scott Meyers' newest effort. Effective C++ CD author Scott Meyers pages publisher Addison Wesley rating 10 reviewer SEGV ISBN 0-201-60615-1 summary More than the sum of its hardcopy contents, this electronic resource earns a place on the programmer's bookshelf.

What to Expect?

I wasn't sure exactly what to expect. Subtitled "85 Specific Ways to Improve Your Programs and Designs," I knew this CD was an electronic version of Scott Meyers' already-published books, which I had previously reviewed for Slashdot:

• Effective C++ Second Edition
• More Effective C++

So I knew a priori that the content was excellent, but how would it be packaged and presented? Would it be Windows-only, forcing me to use it only at work as I run Linux at home? Would it be awkward to read onscreen? Would it be easily searchable? Could I annotate and print portions of it?

A Pleasant Surprise

I was pleasantly surprised when the package contained only a CDROM with these instructions printed on it:

To start, open INDEX.HTM
System requirements: Netscape Navigator 4.0+ (on Unix, Mac, or Win32) or Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0+ (on Win32 only).

So far so good! I had no problems using the CD with Communicator 4.5 on NT 4.0, and Communicator 4.04 on Debian GNU/Linux 2.0. Pretty much any modern browser with Java and JavaScript support should work. If you experience browser problems, the publisher provides helpful advice.

Initial Impressions

The CD has a nice look and feel to it. A navigation area is always present, acting as a control and providing a colour indication of where you are in the CD.

The text is decent to read and is true HTML, not merely raw text. It seems Meyers is conscious of the fact that an electronic version must add value to complement a printed version, otherwise it is not useful for its target audience.

Overall, I'd say this offering is a well though out and put together product, and not just a cheap knock-off.

Content

The CD (which itself has a printing number) contains the latest printings of the two books. It also boasts five magazine articles chosen by Meyers to augment the material in the books:

• "Exception Handling: A False Sense of Security" by Tom Cargill, from C++ Report Nov-Dec 1994.
• "Coping With Exceptions" by Jack W. Reeves, from C++ Report Mar 1996.
• "Exception-Safe Generic Containers" by Herb Sutter, from C++ Report Sep 1997, Nov-Dec 1997.
• "Counting Objects in C++" by Scott Meyers, from C/C++ Users Journal Apr 1998.
• "A First Look at C++ Program Analyzers" by Scott Meyers and Martin Klaus, from Dr. Dobb's Journal Feb 1997.

The first three are highly recommended for anyone dealing with exceptions. And of course, since any function may throw an exception, that means anyone writing C++! The object counting article elaborates on an idea from Effective C++ Item 14, illustrating some subtle language issues along the way. The final article outlines the state of the art in commercial static C++ analysis tools in September 1996.

Hyperlinks

The CD has links everywhere. Let me repeat: everywhere. In addition to hyperlinking existing references, Meyers added many cross references to the books and articles to further solidify the material.

Links to the internet at large are redirected through Addison Wesley Longman's online site so that they may stay current. And every single paragraph on the CD is anchored and hyperlinked, to facilitate electronic referencing and bookmarking.

Search Facilities

The CD provides two alternatives to your browser's "find in page" search facility. The first is a comprehensive merged index of the two books. The second is a search applet, modified from the Design Patterns CD search applet. It displays the resulting hits, with their enclosing paragraph for context if you select it. I found it easy to scan through hits until I found an interesting paragraph, then to jump to that document.

Although the search applet is aware of the entire CD, it appears that it can search only for one keyword. I'd really prefer more sophisticated search string options, such as multiple keywords, boolean operations, and perhaps even full regular expressions.

Configuration Facilities

For a set of web pages, the CD is impressively configurable. You can choose between five navigation area sizes, and five image sizes. You can view the books by item, by chapter, or in their entirety. And of course you can change text size in your browser.

Performance and Licensing

To implement the configurability options, there are actually five copies of each image and three copies of each book on the CD. Still, the total data size is a mere 16MB, which easily fits on a hard drive for greater performance and frees a CDROM drive for other use. This is also important because, given technology, actually altering the HTML files is really the only viable way of annotating the CD.

The CD comes with a single user license. You must contact the publisher for additional network license options. The short story is: you can make the CD available on a non-internet-accessible server to as many users as you have licenses, and you can purchase additional network licenses more cheaply the more you buy.

Summary

I've been using the CD both at work and at home for a couple of weeks, and I continue to find it a valuable resource. It easily subs in for my absent printed books, although of course I can't use it without a computer. The articles are useful, and the index and search applet allow me to quickly find what I am looking for.

Really, I have only three complaints:

• the search applet is somewhat limited
• there could be more magazine articles
• Scott's author photo is starting to look less like Eddie Van Halen and more like Gene Simmons

However, I don't think any of those detracts from the CD enough to reduce its 10/10 rating. In the worst case, since the CD is composed of text HTML files, you could apply other search utilities (eg, grep) to it.

The CD's online site has a demo, which I recommend trying if you want to get a feel for the CD before you purchase it. In addition to the general look and feel, navigation area, and search applet, it includes all of the magazine articles and a few of the books' items.

I'm happy with the CD, and recommend it as a professional resource.

To pick this up and help Slashdot, head over to Computer Literacy.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction
Effective C++ Second Edition
More Effective C++
Magazine Articles
Search the CD

SEGV, another of our resident book reviewers has written a review of the new Scott Meyer's book More Effective C++: 35 New Ways to Improve Your Programs and Designs. This is a follow-up to his previous book, and is designed for people familiar with the language.
On a different note, if you are interested in reviewing, drop me a line. We need more reviews, and I even have some books to send out as tank oos. More Effective C++: 35 New Ways to Improve Your Programs and Designs author Scott Meyers pages publisher Addison-Wesley rating 8/10 reviewer SEGV ISBN 0-201-63371-X summary A fitting follow-up to a practical classic.

More Effective C++: 35 New Ways to Improve Your Programs and Designs,
by Scott Meyers
[Addison-Wesley, ISBN 0-201-63371-X]

reviewed by SEGV [home]

Nutshell
Review:

A fitting follow-up to a practical classic.

Rating: 8/10

Episode VI: Return of the Guru

Scott Meyers has penned a worthy sequel to his original classic (now in its second edition, reviewed here). More Effecive C++ [online site] continues with the same style and quality, allowing the aspiring C++ student to further her skills with this powerful language.

Scope

This book pretty much assumes that you're familiar with the foundation laid in its predecessor. Because of that, it is able to skip the "basics" (like "use delete on pointer members") and get into more advanced topics.

Although it covers fewer Items, it is a larger book by quite a bit. Some Items are full (20+ pages) treatments of complex subjects, such as implementing smart pointers. Meyers takes you through all the nitty-gritty details of the topic at hand; by the time you're finished an Item, you not only know one or two Right Ways to do something, but also half a dozen Wrong Ways!

Content

After a brief treatment of a few more "basic" Items, Meyers leaps into a discussion of operators. Here he covers some points not present in the first book.

If you are using exceptions at all, the next Items will go far towards justifying the cost of this book. We hear about thread-safety, but often forget about exception-safety. Typically, the latter causes resource leaks, which are not as visible as the crashes caused by the former. Meyers not only explains the finer details of using exceptions properly, he also demonstrates idioms to make cleaning up after your code's mess easy and automatic.

Next Meyers discusses ways to help your code perform better and faster. Some are specific, lower level techniques, such as organizing your functions to facilitate the return value optimization. Others are generic, higher level techniques such as lazy evaluation, but it's valuable to see them illustrated in C++. All give you a deeper understanding of how C++ goes about its business.

The next Items are a set of techniques that you can apply in C++. These idioms may help you solve particular problems: for example, making functions virtual with respect to more than one object is how the Visitor pattern is implemented in C++. Even if you use existing code, such as auto_ptr, it's enlightening and instructive to see exactly what's going on under the hood, as with smart pointers.

Finally, Meyers wraps up his treatise with some more general Items. I particularly like his idea of programming in the future tense. What he really means, is write code as it should be, not just as the compiler allows. If your design calls for constraints, enforce them in the code. Don't break encapsulation just for convenience. Build in flexibility. And so on.

Summary

I recommend this book. It's not as reference-worthy as its predecessor, but it has its own place on your bookshelf. It bears reading even if you borrow a copy.

Buy this book over this way.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Basics

Item 1: Distinguish between pointers and references
Item 2: Prefer C++-style casts
Item 3: Never treat arrays polymorphically
Item 4: Avoid gratuitous default constructors

Operators

Item 5: Be wary of user-defined conversion functions
Item 6: Distinguish between prefix and postfix forms of increment and decrement operators
Item 7: Never overload &&, ||, or ,
Item 8: Understand the different meanings of new and delete

Exceptions

Item 9: Use destructors to prevent resource leaks
Item 10: Prevent resource leaks in constructors
Item 11: Prevent exceptions from leaving destructors
Item 12: Understand how throwing an exception differs from passing a parameter or calling a virtual function
Item 13: Catch exceptions by reference
Item 14: Use exception specifications judiciously
Item 15: Understand the costs of exception handling

Efficiency

Item 16: Remember the 80-20 rule
Item 17: Consider using lazy evaluation
Item 18: Amortize the cost of expected computations
Item 19: Understand the origin of temporary objects
Item 20: Facilitate the return value optimization
Item 21: Overload to avoid implicit type conversions
Item 22: Consider using op= instead of stand-alone op
Item 23: Consider alternative libraries
Item 24: Understand the costs of virtual functions, multiple inheritance, virtual base classes, and RTTI

Techniques

Item 25: Virtualizing constructors and non-member functions
Item 26: Limiting the number of objects of a class
Item 27: Requiring or prohibiting heap-based objects
Item 28: Smart pointers
Item 29: Reference counting
Item 30: Proxy classes
Item 31: Making functions virtual with respect to more than one object

Miscellany

Item 32: Program in the future tense
Item 33: Make non-leaf classes abstract
Item 34: Understand how to combine C++ and C in the same program
Item 35: Familiarize yourself with the language standard

Recommended Reading

An auto_ptr Implementation

General Index

Index of Example Classes, Functions, and Templates