Customer Reviews

Complete C++ Training Course, The (4th Edition) (Prentice Hall Complete Training Courses)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

The book is a good start for those interested in learning c++ for the first time, but is by no means a comprehensive coverage of the language. Especially when covering the advanced topics such as multiple inheritance, templates, and exceptions it falls a bit short of what you really need to know. Also, the multimedia CD's content is ok but the navigation tool is horrendously bad and seems only geared to a sequential coverage of the subject matter. You'd be hard pressed to use it as an occassional reference. The audio presentations on the CD sounds like that Rabbi on the Seinfeld show. The voice is so nasal and monotone it is sure to drive you crazy.

Do authors ever read their own material? To see a book published on a programming subject without errors would be a real treat. Punctuation and grammar are poor, sentences run on and on and on ad nauseum.

Don't bother with the CD, it's limited usefulness matches the book. This is no where near a comprehensive coverage of any language let alone the one it's about.

DON'T WASTE YOUR MONEY. I wouldn't have the book were it not shipped free to our department for evaluation.

I knew nothing about C++ when I started, and I know a little bit after going through the first three chapters. Even if the book is not bad, but I wish I had bought another. It contains didactical mistakes, like add compications when introducing a new subject. The exercises are not enough to complete understanding of the subject. There are also repeated exercises almost in the same page!

The multimedia CD was a complete disapointing! It doesn't really add anything to the book and it is not interactive at all.

The package comes with a CD, Microsoft Visual C++, but once I installed, I could not find any explanation of how to run it.

After just finishing the book today, I have to say I have a larger insight into c++ programming. If you do all the examples yourself and try to do all the exercises,you WILL learn. The down side is though that if you have never programmed B4, you may need to have a dictionary beside you to keep up. It is a book that will help you to grasp the meanings of what a class is and arrays, but it can get a little tricky when it comes to the header files and the STL. If you have tried to learn Java and still have no idea, this will give you a better understanding to make the study of Java easier If you want to make games-Forget it.( buy a book on ASM or get the Black Art Of 3D Game Programming in C. If you have mastered C already and need a hit of OOP, then it's good. It is a BIG book on the subject, so don't buy it , get half way through and think you wont get it. cout << "IF YOU READ IT THROUGH, YOU WILL LEARN! << endl;

The book along with the multimedia "classroom" make an excellent combination for learning and/or reviewing C++. I haven't gotten all the way through it (yet) but so far have learned more than with any other book. The CD is far more than just code examples from the book. You not only read explanations for various concepts & code examples but hear them as well when they are presented by the authors in a complete and comprehensive manner. Very well laid out too. Only complaint is that the CD sometimes runs a little slow when loading the lessons but hey, the content more than makes up for this minor glitch.

This is one of the best written books I have ever seen in any computer language book. I love the color-coded sections that clearly separate the code from the comments and the main text. It makes it much easier to read and keep your place. Everything is very thoroughly addressed. There is an abundance of references and further study materials. Even the paper is of high quality, so I was very disappointed and surprised when I ran into problems with support.

When I ordered the book, I ordered the training course version, but the cyber classroom CD did not work. I emailed for help and one month and two other emails later they replied, telling me that they no longer offered support for the cyber classroom, since my book was "too old". There was nothing in the license about a support expiration date. I just bought the book about the time Dietel released their latest edition, so the book was not more than two years old. I am sure the latest cyber classroom was not much different than the older versions and it would have taken maybe five minutes of their time to help me, but my personal impression was they were too lazy to want to help and were not dedicated to their customers. I might be wrong about this but I would not take chances again.

After a little debugging of the contents of the installation, I got the cyber classroom to function on my own and again I was disappointed. The cyber classroom was just a simplified version of their book. The "interactive" part was just simply clicking on the links that took you to the next chapter. How is reading the same thing as what is in the book supposed to be like going to a classroom? It did offer a way to compile and run the sample programs in the book though, but I did not need a cyber classroom CD to do that.

I very highly recommend buying Deitel books, but I also very highly recommend not getting any of their software CDs or training courses that go along with those books. It just jacks the price way up and although your experience may vary mine, in my opinion it is not at all worth the much higher price, as I thought it would have been. I will not make that mistake again.

First, the good things. This is a nicely produced books. I say
"produced" because it takes more than just writing to make it. There is
a lot of code listings, color-coded in a consistent way, line-numbered
and conveniently split across figures and pages. Clearly, a lot of work
went into all of that. Several individuals other than the two authors
worked on the production (including a graphic artist). The CD contains
the full text and code, plus audio commentary on the code.

Now, the bad things. This is a huge book. The text is long-winded and
too slow going. I am pretty sure that those with good programming
experience in other languages (PASCAL, C, etc) will be too impatient to
read thru. Those who are complete novices to programming will probably
not have the stamina to read this massive tome. This leaves me
wondering as to who is the "ideal" reader of this book. I wish I knew
the answer.

The code examples do illustrate the concepts, but each piece of code is
new and unrelated to previous code. It would have been better to stick
to a single programming task and develop and refine the code as the book
moved along. The code in the book is simply too distracting. There is,
however, one example (elevator simulation) that the authors tackle
troughout, but they do that in the optional reading sections (in
connection with UML), not part of the main text. I find that example
really spurious. You don't need UML to use C++.

In summary, I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone.

(...)

I am a C++ programmer, and my wife is using this book for a C++ class. I am constantly amazed at the ideas she gets from this book until I read Deitels' bizarre explanations. Also, the exercises are ambiguous, so the course instructor sometimes interprets the requirements differently. The CD contains the exact text of the book, plus audio. Part of the text is presented in sequence, other parts you see in a popup window only if you happen to click on a busy-bee icon. The only use I see for the CD is the search function, which would help to deal with the disorganized presentation of the material. Unfortunately the search returns nothing, or a list of unrelated items. You need to copy the CD to the hard drive to speed up access. The free Visual C++ compiler is nice, but don't run multiple copies to get multiple editors, as you can destroy your source file. Check out Eckel, Lippman, Meyers, Stroustrup.

i bought this book and it was very helpful. my friennd is a 2 yr programmer and got me into c++. he learned it from a Dummies book and when i let him see my book to check for its quality, he said it was good. i took it back but he grabbed it and said its a very interesting book. this book, i have read, teaches c++ thouroughly. who ever doesnt understand this needs too take english 101 part2. thank u Deitel and Deitel.

A real good book for learning the real basics. The problem with it is that after that you rae really lost.