Customer Reviews

Essential C++

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I was rather skeptical when I first heard of this book. After all, explaining C++ in anything less than 500 or 600 pages seemed impossible.

I was very pleasantly surprised when I started reading though. This is very down-to-earth and crystal-clear reading. Easy to understand and, most importantly, you won't get overwhelmed by the sheer size of the mountain ahead of you. Naturally, you can't expect this book to turn you into a C++ guru. But that isn't its purpose. (Besides, there are *no* books that will turn you into a guru, only books that are more complete, including Stan's own C++ Primer.)

This book is excellent for *learning* C++ and getting off the ground. It achieves this goal better than any other C++ book I've read. Once you've read this book, you can graduate to more advanced material, such as the C++ Primer (which is didactically very good) or Stroustrup's book (which is didactically nowhere near as good, but works better as a reference due to its terseness). "Essential C++" provides very solid C++ grounding without neglecting any of the important parts of the language.

Highly recommended!

This isn't greatest book to *learn* C++. I bought it largely on the strength of the other reviews and my experiences coding successfully in other languages but (e.g., perl, python, java, php, shell scripts, etc.). My experience with this book (even in comparison to other books I'e browsed on C/C++), it that it is written to be useful more for someone who already knows C++ or is a dedicated C programmer and wants to pick up C++.

A great author usually writes in such a way as to not be misunderstood, but I found myself hae to reread passages frequently to answer questions which went unaddressed. Some typos were also evident, even in critical places--e.g., when he introduces references and relates them to pointers (page 46). At other times he'll introduce concepts without much expalanation at all. For example, the keyword extern shows up in the sample answer to problem 2.1 without being inroduced yet. The eventual discussion of extern on 64 is only useful if you already know what it means. He also likes to inject new concepts or syntax in the main text and footnote them with comments like "I'm certainly not going to explain this guy!" on page 33, referring you instead to some other book if you happen to have it nearby. Maybe this won't appear in subsequent editions. If you already have significant C/C++ experience, then you can esily oerlook these matters; but, if you are just trying to learn C++ (especially without a dedicated C background), then the compact nature of this exposition will be a two-edged sword.

That said, I did like the sample problems and answers. I wasn't a big fan of the subject matter for the running example (a game based on sequences), but it serves as a framework for exposition. If you already know C/C++ but want to brush up on you techniques, then this may be a good purchase. Otherwise, keep looking.

Finally we have a short, concise introduction to C++. As Stan himself mentioned, it follows the "Learning Perl" approach. Thus this book is not meant to be an exhaustive treatise of the language, but should give a working programmer a chance to start using this complex language. It takes the Perl approach in saying: use as much as you feel comfortable with to start, and as your knowledge progresses expend on your technique. I have seen some complains about number of errors in this book. For an errata please go to http://www.develop.com/hp/slip/Errata_1st.pdf. Also http://www.develop.com/hp/slip/windows.zip contains the source code for this book. In short (literally) we have a great book, which does a great job introducing C++ and at the same time, it is small enough to be carried around. I highly recommend it.

THIS BOOK ALONG WITH LIPPMANS' C++ PRIMER ARE ALL THAT IS NEEDED TO LEARN C++. BOTH BOOKS ARE EXTREMELY GOOD, IMHO! P. S. NOT FOR THE 'TEACH YOURSELF C++ IN 21 DAYS CROWD" THESE BOOKS ARE FOR PROFESSIONAL PROGRAMMERS.

This book introduced the very "essential" part of C++ (just as its title). However, the content of this book is not easy to follow if you are a "pure" novice. It's more suitable for "a little" experienced programmers rather than just a C++ beginner.

It put more emphases on the "object-based, object-oriented, and generic" programming with function template, class template and some basic STL those had been used widely through this book.

Even if the last chapter of this book covered the "Exception Handling", it is just a glance (14 pages for basic concepts). It's the most disappointing part. Other chapters are better and mentioned the key of their subjects.

Again, just as I said, if you do NOT have ANY experience about C++, try a easier book. If you want to start C++ with this one, you'd better also have a great reference (such like "C++ Primer" by the same author, or "The C++ Programming Language by the the "father" of C++, Bjarne Stroustrup) and someone who can help you clear some important concepts.

The author offered a very useful examples for generic algorithms and the solutions to the exercises in the appendix.

The nice thing about this book is that it can be used for both learning the C++ language as well as for having a handy reference. The book covers C++ with a supprisingly good level of details even though it's meant to be concise. The author wrote valuable comments about the execution efficiency issue when using different coding options.

A general comment on the author's approach is that he starts with the basics of C without making a distinction between C and C++ related instructions as the book moves further ahead. The C++ coverage does not suffer from that approach, the emphasis being put clearly on C++. Consequently, I recommend this book but a reader having a good knowledge of regular C will of course feel more comfortable.

This book takes you from C++ ground zero up to writing some fairly complicated and interesting programs in a short time. Mr. Lippman provides progressively harder problems that need to be solved, and at each stage teaches you exactly those new language elements that are needed to solve each problem, so you can understand from the beginning the usefulness (and necessity) of the language features. The example programs are interesting, and best of all, he provides answers to the programming exercises (I always love it when an author does that!), so you can practice what you're learning and get feedback on how you're doing!

With the 2 authoritative textbooks of C++ are ~1200 pages and ~1100 pages (the one by Lippman and Stroustrup, respectively), it's scary and discouraging for anyone who thinks of starting to learn C++. Moreover, as a professional developer who want some quick start to refresh my somewhat rusted memory of the language, I found it hard to flip over the 2 thick textbooks mentioned above.

I went through "Essential C++" and in a short time, refreshed and considated key concepts of the language. For example, the chapter about exception handling gave me a quick and sufficient overview about concepts and syntax. Then when I read the book by Stroustrup, I caught up quicker and easier.

However, this book will not serve as the one and only book in a professional or student's bookshelf. One will need one or both of the textbooks mentioned above to have more involving discussion.

As long as we don't intend to use the book as a quick and dirty "Teach yourself C++ in 7 days", the book serves it purpose as a concise priming and refreshing text.

"Essential C++" conveys the essence of C++ in a very readable 200 pages. I was already familiar with much of the basic material but the review/reinforcement was helpful and I learned many new things about some relatively recent C++ features such as the standard template library, generic programming, function objects, templates and exceptions.

This book takes a hands on approach, developing code fragments to illustrate the topics by example. It's very well organized with each chapter building on material from previous chapters. Lippman's writing is simple and straightforward with a touch of good humor.

All in all a rarity - a technical book about computer programming that is well organized, full of useful information and fun to read.

The enormous success of C Programming Language is, IMHO, because it is simple, flexible and powerful. The whole language is very well written by K&R in the classic book. Every sentence in that book is precise yet complete. For novice, the learning curve of C++ is steep because it is not as simple as C. At least, at first, software developers are afraid of the huge number of features and the inter-connections it offers.

I have been waiting (and wondering) why pioneers of the C++ language didn't provide a simple book (at the same size of K&R C) for the developer community? Here is the answer I found with this book "Essential C++". I bought C++ Primer long time ago. But I couldn't finish reading that book - just because the book is huge and better serves as a reference. With the same attractive/readable font and formatting as C++ Primer, Essential C++ offers a very good introduction to C++ in a step-by-step fashion - Procedural, Generic, Object-Based, Object-Oriented and STL programming.

I sincerely suggest that every C++ programmer will be benefited by reading this book first. After reading this book, I am sure, you will change impression about C++ and look it as a beautiful, elegant and powerful language.