Customer Reviews

C++ Distilled: A Concise ANSI/ISO Reference and Style Guide

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Just like one of the reviewers below, I defected from C++ to Java a long time ago - before the advent of namespaces, STL, etc. Recently I had to do some C++ work and this book was all I needed. It is literally the only C++ book I own. The author's mastery of language (both C++ and English) allows him to cover every important C++ topic without wasting any space. His writing is brief and to the point. This book helped me learn STL, re-learn C++'s terrifying I/O, and re-learn operator overloading. It's a refresher course and a reference. It's tiny, and great.

C++ Distilled by Ira Pohl is a marvelous piece of work. It successfully transforms the ANSI/ISO draft standard into something useful and usable. Dr. Pohl has stripped from the draft standard the verbiage useful only to the compiler writer and has managed to present what's left as a tight, annotated reference that also promotes good style. I am requiring it of all my C++ students, and highly recommend it to all C++ programmers.

Everyone seems to love this book. To each his own. Having programmed since 1982, I've learned my share of languages and used my share of references to look up the feature I know is in there and just need to know the way to type the syntax or what the specific command is. This book has confounded me time and time again. It has 'part' of what I need to know, but never all of it, so I'm constantly forced to seek other sources.

The most recent example that prompted me to finally write this review after having had the book for a year: I want to use a priority queue to do something. Easy enough to find in the Containers section, it lists the operations you can do on a priority queue in a table - they are the basic queue operatoins. Whats missing is the key constructor syntax that explains how you define that all important 'priority' to the priority-queue. I know a comparision operation must be supplied somehow, somewhere, but I'll be damned if its anywhere near the description I'm looking at.

The stuff that I find in this book is the stuff I can remember. Whats missing for me is the stuff I forget, or those things that are more specific to an implementation.

I find this book useless as a reference. When I learned C++ in a course, our instructor swore by this book, saying its a much smaller book to have to carry around than Stroustrup. That is is, but it never seems to have that thing I'm trying to look up - that aspect I'm having trouble remembering about the syntax. Thankfully I have a copy of "The C++ Standard Library". Thats a big hardback textbook - but it has all the info and since I'm not developing code at a cafe over lunch, but at my desk, lugging it around is not an issue.

Concise! At the same time Phol has taken care not to miss out details. It covers all the latest features of C++. He is able to present some of the abstract and difficult concepts in a short and easy to understand manner. This book was of real help to me.

This book is an easy read for someone already having exposure to C++. It's a reference book where one can just look up stuff they don't quite remember. But it's a little more than that because the author includes very concise advice in the form of bullet lists under "Dr. P's Prescriptions". It works great for me because I now only write C++ programs every couple of years.
The book also provides an introduction to the basics of the Standard Template Library (STL) which is used by many C++ programs these days.
It is the perfect book to refresh your memory on C++ before an interview because it covers a lot of ground in its 200 pages.

Pohl has managed to strike a very nice balance between reference books that are too concise (and thus leave you feeling confused unless you already know a feature very well) and too verbose (and thus make it difficult to do a "quick lookup" on something). I wish there were more reference books out there that struck such a balance.

The book is short enough (~200 pages with good amounts of white space) that you can read through it in a few days for a quick review if you've been away from C++ for a while (particularly if you've been away since before all the new C++ features were added!). Note that even though it came out in late '96, it does seem to have all of the new C++ features in it -- including STL (although the STL chapter is pretty cursory) and all of the other new language features (namespaces, new casting methods, etc).

Would also highly recommend Meyer's _Effective C++_ for those just getting into C++ or returning to it after a long absense. Also, something like Josuttis' _The C++ Standard Library: A Tutorial and Reference_ for a more in depth look at STL and the string class.

+AH4-I was asked to review this book, and I ended up buying a copy for myself. If you already know some C+-+-, this is a prefect book to have. It is so concise, that often single sentences talk volumes! Therefore if anything seems vague, it's a good hint to look into it further.

One nice feature for the intermediate programmers is "Dr. P's Prescription". These are suggestion (or often rules) at the end of each section. In a way, they add to the applicability of the book without any+AH4-+AH4- material getting lost in excess verbiage -- much like Scott Meyer's Effective C+-+-.+AH4-

Having defected the C++ camp and moved to the Java camp for quite some time, I wanted to catch-up with the new C++ features and refresh old knowledge. I found this thin and concise book help me do exactly that. Buying Stroustrup for that purpose was ambitious although you should finally. Only annoying thing about the book is that there are some code dumps in places with insufficient discussion. The "Prescriptions" and the associated discussions are very good indeed.