Customer Reviews

Conquering C++ Pointers

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For many C++ programming students, the concept and usage of pointers (and references) is often perplexing. Enter Traister, one of the few to write a book solely on this subject. This book focuses on explaining pointers in a way to enlighten new C++ programmers.

This book is basically a rehash of C pointers, substituting cout for printf statements. It is a C-centric book rewritten to take up C++, which mirrors Traister's other works, "Going from C to C++" and "C Pointers".

You won't find anything advanced, like abstract virtual classes, how the virtual tables are composed, or other interesting topics. In fact, when discussing how virtual members suddenly change the pointer offsets, he states "[t]his is a bit of mystery... The answer to these questions must somehow be linked to the use of the virtual methods in the class." Obviously, he doesn't understand how virtual tables are constructed.

Traister sticks to the basics, and covers them reasonably well.

This book is *very* basic! It does a superb job of explaining the fundamentals of pointers. When I bought the book I didn't understand pointers at all - the rules of referencing, dereferencing, and allocation were like arcane mysteries. Traister uses simple language and deliberate repetition to drive home key concepts. After reading the book, pointers were easy. I highly recommend this book if you're struggling with pointers at a very basic level.