Customer Reviews

Data Structures in C++: Using the Standard Template Library (STL)

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

 

 

I am currently taken a Data Structures course and this is the textbook being used at the university. The book gives basic qualitative understanding of data structures. The answers to the questions and excersizes at the end of each chapter are missing {at least provide the answers to odd ones like other texts}. Standard Templates are given however, Microsoft Visual C++ products do no compile examples without some tweaking. This book seems to be geared to the Borland compiler. The are errors in the coding and text explainations. The authur uses the same name for functions and iterators in the examples which makes learning a little more difficult. I using another book to augment my learning.

I used this book in a Data Structures course, and it turned out to go pretty well. It covers all of the data structures in the STL (vectors, queues, strings, lists, etc.) in addition to some things not implemented (trees, hashes, etc.).

The nice thing about this book is for each data structure, it broke it up into two sections. A look at how it was implemented in the STL and also a look at the interface and how to use it, along with examples. In our course, we focused on how to use it (why reinvent the wheel), but it was nice to know how it works as well.

Budd also provides a nice quick sheet for each structure so when you are writing programs, you can refer to it and know immediately how to use that structure.

Be forewarned, some of his code has errors. You can download fixes for some at his website (listed in the book). Not all code has fixes on his website, but you should be able to fix them yourself after reading the book.

One final note, I was able to use most of the code in this book with both MS Visual C++ 5 and Borland C++ 5 with only minor modifications.

We have used this book at our University, but it doesn't provide any answers, actually it gives more bugs than answers ! I advise NOT to buy this book, there are other books out there which are a lot better !

I thought this book would tell me how to use the STL, it didn't. If you just look at the summary of the operations you can use with list there isn't a single word about what the operations returns if they give something in return

This book is in dire need of major revisions. The example programs (the list class especially) do not compile without the reader revising the code quite a bit. As a textbook, the start of the book is quite a good one. It is good how the author describes how you can implement data structures using the boiled-down versions of the STL classes. However, this method breaks down soon as the author moves into more complex data structures: trees, sets, etc. The book tends to spend more time dealing with explaining how you can widdle around in STL than to delve into the basis and use of the fundamental data structures. If you are looking for a good reference on how to program using the STL, look elsewhere. Much of the book deals with the author's version of the STL than the (Un-?)Standard Template Library.

Provides a well thought-out and organized overview of fundamental data-structures in the STL. Most frequently used member functions are clearly described and summarized at the end of each chapter. One of the few books on the subject that strikes a balance between showing how data-structures are implemented while still providing practical information so you can use the STL in your own code.

This book did provide some usefull expamples of C++ STL, but overall it is the worst C++ book I have ever read! I only have it because it was the required text for my Data Structures class. The Index is worthless! Many poor explanitions! There are fare better books out there for STL.

If you're looking for specifics about STL, then look onto another text. However I did find that this is one of the better books that describe data structures in an informative way and also backed up with easy to understand and decently designed classes (surprisingly I have found many of the code for other data structure books to be poorly written and obtuse). Doesn't go discuss some of the more interesting data structures such as RB trees, etc. If they come up with a sequel that does, I would gladly buy it. But it does cover the basics quite well.

For those of us who rely on answers to help us tell if we are on the right track or not, this book isn't the right one for me.

This book was used one semester for a data structures course at my university. It was not used subsequently. There are plenty of better books out there. Buy one of them; don't buy this one.