Customer Reviews

Data Structures and Other Objects Using C++ (4th Edition)

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

I thought this book was great. Yes, others may say it was very difficult to get through (i agree) but with persistence there is a big reward. The book provides full implementation details for a bunch of data structures and even sections devoted to the STL and iterators. I don't believe the implementation in this book was meant to be compiled under MVC++'s IDE. The back of the book provides a website containing a free compiler (GNU) to download along with other tools like the emacs editor (That runs on MS Windows). I have never experienced any problem compiling any of the example code under this free compiler (and using MVC++ for the code in the book is like trying to kill an ant with a shotgun anyways). This book was also not meant to teach basic C++ coding but rather to teach the concept of data structures (which should apply to various programming lang. anyways). If you want to learn how to code in C++, I recommend Deitel & Deitel "C++ How to program". However this book does teach some areas of basic C++ coding like the importance of the const keyword, using templates, and the new and delete operators. This book also includes some run-time analysis for various algorithms.

After reading the poor reviews I felt bad having to buy this book for a university level data structures course. However, after using this book for a short time I really grew to like it. It is an excellent introduction to classes and OOP in addition to data structures. It picks up right around where most introductory C++ texts leave off. I found the authors explanations to be very clear and the examples to be very relavant to the topics in each chapter. The author seems to build on topics chapter after chapter so it is hard to forget what has already been learned. This is one of the few text books that I am going to keep for future reference.

This book is being used for CMIS 240 (the second semester computer and information science course) at University of Maryland University College. It's quite academic and geared towards the more intelligent reader. The examples are simple and go well with the text, but are not detailed enough to help you to debug your own code.

I more or less liked this book. Upon reading many of the reviews before purchasing the book I was somewhat discouraged from buying it. In the end, I really had no choice since this was the book required for the course I am taking. But, in general it is a very good book. The material itself that is covered isn't the simplest to get a grasp of. You need patience and plenty of hard work. It covers a lot of major topic areas, from linked lists, to sets, to stacks, to queues, to trees, to graphs. Also dedicated chapters introduce and develop upon the concepts of recursion and inheritance. And there are two chapters dedicated to sorting an searching algorithms. The author assumes that you have a relatively good grasp of object oriented concepts. This is not an introduction to C++ book. You should have good groundings in C++ especially with the use of pointers and working with dynamic memmory. Also, if you can think recursively you will be greatly rewarded since most of the examples in later parts of the book rely on this mind twisting yet important concept. If you are using VC++ make sure to use #pragma warning(disable:4786) when working with STL multisets it will save you from the 100 or so compiler warning messages you will get.

An excellent text for a pre-Computer Science II class. The book was clear, concise, easy to understand for me, and the exercises really helped to emphasize the major points of each chapter. Most importantly, it is the most error free text I have ever had the pleasure of working with.

The authors seem torn bewtween writing a C++ tutorial and a data structures tutorial. As a result neither topic is presented as well as it could or should be presented. Their approach also seems fragmented sometimes as though they start to explain something, think better of it, and jump to another topic. I am glad I am already experienced in these data structures and C++ since I would dread trying to learn either from this book.

Contrary to the other reviews, I found that this book was easy to read and the examples helped tremendously with my homework assignments. The book gives detailed, step-by-step instructions on how to create arrays, linked lists, queues, stacks, b-trees, etc. It then goes on to show both the algorithm and C++ code to make the data structures. In addition to that, the book carefully explains the code and why the authors chose to code in the manner that they did. Even better, the code uses variable and function names that make sense!! With the code and detailed explantions, I think that most new C++ programmers will benefit greatly from using this text. The easy to read code and laid back style of writing is not at all intimidating. My only gripe is that some of the toolkit functions they propose in the book, do not handle special exceptions. This means I had to manipulate a lot of the code they showed in the book to work with my homework assignments. But then, the point of this book is to learn, right? Bottom Line: A good book. I'm keeping it for reference. I'm glad I used it.

I more or less liked this book. Upon reading many of the reviews before purchasing the book I was somewhat discouraged from buying it. In the end, I really had no choice since this was the book required for the course I am taking. But, in general it is a very good book. The material itself that is covered isn't the simplest to get a grasp of. You need patience and plenty of hard work. It covers a lot of major topic areas, from linked lists, to sets, to stacks, to queues, to trees, to graphs. Also dedicated chapters introduce and develop upon the concepts of recursion and inheritance. And there are two chapters dedicated to sorting an searching algorithms. The author assumes that you have a relatively good grasp of object oriented concepts. This is not an introduction to C++ book. You should have good groundings in C++ especially with the use of pointers and working with dynamic memmory. Also, if you can think recursively you will be greatly rewarded since most of the examples in later parts of the book rely on this mind twisting yet important concept. If you are using VC++ make sure to use #pragma warning(disable:4786) when working with STL multisets it will save you from the 100 or so compiler warning messages you will get.

I've just finished my second course in C++ where this book was required. This book covers a huge area but not very well. It's confusing and the examples aren't very good, since he uses an "unpretty" approach to things, bad coding habits, and many of the examples are incomplete. If you want to learn the thoery, use another book. If you afterwards, as I do, wan't to use it as a reference guide, it is no good at all, since the examples are incompelete, scattered all over the place, or at worst you have to make them yourself in a selvtest excercise. And what's with all the trick questions?!? It does how ever earn it's 2 stars because it does cover areas such as trees and hashing. Although they are advanced areas of C++. But once again; "Use another book!" I would recommend Ford & Topp - "Intro To Computing using C++ and Object Technology". Which unfortunaltly does not cover trees and hashing.

Conclusion: There are other and better ways to spend your money and learn C++. If it is required that you read this book, then I'm sorry for you. Make sure to have another book so that you can learn how to code C++ the proper way.

This book was, unfortunately, a required text at my university, in 2nd semester intro to programming. In short, this book is down-right scary. Not only does it suggest that students use strange, esoteric, and sometimes frightening code and habits (assert()? for trivial code fragments? Students should learn to deal with it, not break the program for every little detail), it also does a very poor job of explaining the material. Furthermore, it spends most parts of any given chapter (~80%) giving drab, pointless examples and then proceeding therewith to waste valuable space implementing the code. While the book does implement the classic data structures (stacks, queues, etc), it does a poor job even at that. At no time during the entire book did I feel that I was enlightened. Mostly, I just felt that I had wasted many greenbacks buying a book that was neither useful nor interesting. Unfortunately, it seems to have the flavor of many standard academic programming books. This book goes even further: it misses the point of data structures, and does a horrid job of teaching them in C++. Spare yourself. There are plenty of better, CHEAPER books on the topic. Don't buy it even if it is a required text! In short: HIGHLY UNRECOMMENDED for anyone other than experts in the field looking for books not to recommend.