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Practical C++ Programming, Second Edition
Practical C++ Programming is a fairly large book: 549 pages organized into six parts containing 30 chapters and 5 appendixes. The parts are as follows:
- The Basics
- Simple Programming
- Advanced Types and Classes
- Advanced Programming Concepts
- Other Language Features
- Appendixes.
I must start by saying that I like the book -- I think it has value. There are a number of things I really appreciate about the book. There are also some problems that adversely impact one segment of the book's intended audience (more about those later.)
The book discusses all the essential elements of C++. Areas covered include: Class definition, namespaces, scope definition and resolution, operator and function overloading, object memory allocation (i.e. new and delete,) type casting, exceptions, inheritance, templates (including an introduction to the Standard Template Library,) the Input/Output system (including the C I/O library), and pointers. All language operators are discussed (i.e. relational, assignment, etc.) Also covered are language elements that C++ has in common with C. The other areas of instruction (programming style, software development concepts, programming tools) are intertwined with the primary topic throughout the course of the book.
One of the book's strong points is the author's excellent conversational writing style. It's hard to find books that combine good technical information with clear expository writing (O'Reilly seems to publish most of them.) Practical C++ Programming definitely succeeds in this area. The author frequently references his own experience to reinforce concepts on programming style, design and debugging. I found his anecdotes useful and occasionally humorous. The book also contains small sections of text that serve to warn the reader of pitfalls (these are marked with a bear trap icon) and areas where caution should be exercised (marked with bear paw tracks). Also, some of the source code examples contain intentional bugs, which the author explains at the end of each chapter. Diagrams, tables and source code examples are found on almost every page of the book, and these are used to keep the reader engaged with the textual discourse. My favorite diagram is Figure 7-1. "Software life cycle," on page 88; I emphasize with the dinosaur.
The book contains some interesting programming examples. The chapters on operator overloading and floating-point math contain source code illustrating how to deal with the numeric precision problems that plague all computers and computer languages. The chapter on the Standard Template Library contains a program showing how to create and use objects that manage a simple roster for enrollment and grading of students. The book also contains several examples of linked-lists and trees, for the purpose of teaching the reader how to use pointers, and to also show the reader the power and usefulness of the Standard Template Library.
Now to speak about the book's shortcomings. First, although the book does a good job of covering the important C++ topics of classes, inheritance, and templates, I think it falls a bit short in these areas (especially the coverage of inheritance). Also, the terms instantiation, polymorphism and encapsulation are not used in the book. The book could have provided a bit more insight into object-oriented concepts. Also, these areas of the book are sparsely diagrammed. Second, source code errors and typos appear regularly enough to frustrate an inexperienced reader. I also found a couple of diagrams to be confusing. Third, there are occasional misleading statements that a beginner probably won't recognize as such. Because of these problems, I cannot recommend the book to people with no previous programming experience. I'm surprised that these problems made it into a second edition.
I think that despite these problems, the book has value to experienced programmers who want to learn C++. C programmers in particular will have an easier time dealing with the source code errors. Also, I think that the book can be used by beginning programmers in a classroom environment, providing the instructor understands the book's problems and is prepared to guide students around them. The book should be particularly useful when read in conjunction with a good C++ reference guide.
Practical C++ Programming is an ambitious work in its breadth and depth. It covers more areas of software development than other C++ books. It takes an interesting approach that some readers will appreciate and others may not.
I would like to have seen a more detailed and complete explanation of the object-oriented aspects of C++ (including more diagrams). A table showing all functions for Standard Template Library containers would have been nice (the book does make reference to two STL web sites). Some mention of third-party object libraries (such as Rogue Wave, Qt, etc.) and their uses would have been helpful.
The lack of a detailed explanation of inheritance may not be bad. I'm one of those who believe that heavy reliance on inheritance causes serious maintainability problems. However, I think the book should have covered this topic more fully, so the reader would understand this issue.
In summary, Practical C++ Programming is a good book that really shines in some aspects and falls short in others. With some improvement, it could be a great book.
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If/when I finally learn C++, it's going to have to be with the help of a book that teach C++ for Windows programming, or C++ for Linux programming. I took a data structures class in college and learned about binary trees and pointers and linked lists and all that stuff, but without being able to write a program that I could imagine actually using, I've had little incentive to remember how to overload the ++ operator.
Are there any good programming books that focus on learning to create GUI's and modern applications? Such as, something that addresses modern concepts like internet connections and DVD drives and database connectivity and such. I don't need to relearn the concepts behind OOP (although a quick overview of syntax would be nice), I want to know how programmers use this stuff, what they create vs. what they have access to (like common dialog boxes), and basically the steps between writing a "sort the list of student records" console app and writing a full-blown application (I know the latter takes a lot of time and code, but I don't know what direction to go in, or how programmers organize all the code).
I really hate signatures, but go to my website.
Actually it doesn't always work. On more than one occassion I've seen a bug stop happening when I put in a print statement. Take the print statement out, bug comes back.
This always indicates some kind of memory error, usually an overflow of a local buffer, or a bug in your pointer arithmetic somewhere. By making the call to printf() you are modifying the contents of the stack (by pushing the function arguments) and this changes conditions in such a way that the bug no longer occurs.
It's called a "Heisenbug" :-)
How many "How to program in C++" books to we need?
More power to 'em, I guess. It just seems to me that the language has been around for awhile, has aged gracefully, and has an entire library's worth of books written for it.
I suppose it's good to update every once in awhile, but this book doesn't seem to have anything new (based on the review). I'll stick to the 4 or 5 I have, thanks.
My sig sucks.
On the other hand, if I hadn't read one, just because it's a standard textbook, I would probably avoid it. I have never yet had an assigned textbook that was worth even a quarter what I paid for it. Both my Java textbooks gathered dust while I studied for classes (no pun intended) out of an OReilly book and the aforementioned Deitel and Deitel book.
In summary; I agree that the Deitel's title may be a good recommendation (depending on your learning style) but not because it's a common textbook -- more like in spite of the fact that it's a textbook.
And as far as `Practical C++ programming' goes, I've read parts of it already, and it's been on my `to purchase soon' list before I even read this reveiw. Steve Oualline is a good writer and explains C/C++ clearly and with some humor.
Just my 0010 cents...
philcrissman.com.