Customer Reviews

C++ Gotchas: Avoiding Common Problems in Coding and Design

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Having been in software development for many years, the last twelve using C++, I can say from experience that the author has assembled an accurate collection of problems I encounter over and over again. I have worked with legacy source code from Microsoft, Adobe Systems and other lesser known software companies that have some of the problems described in this book. These instances are not an indication of incompetence on the part of the original programmers, but rather a reflection of the realities of the business: deadlines need to be met and rarely do we have the time fiddle with code to make it into picture perfect C++. And if it works properly as it is, then don't fix something that is not broken.

Beginning C++ programmers will get a lot out of this book. This is especially true if you are migrating from C and need to break a few bad habits. Experienced C++ developers will not get that much out of it, but the author has many interesting points that are worth checking out.

The reviewer from Sweden is either an academic pinhead who has never participated in a large commercial software development effort that someone would actually want to pay money for, or he / she / it stopped reading the book after the first three or four sections.

To sum this book up: If you DON'T need to ask yourself the questions the author addresses in this book, then you are not doing any serious C++ software development!

This is a wonderful book. Not a usual list of trivial advices and recipes, but a collection of serious considerations on how to write code that will survive years of maintenance.

I haven't come to this conclusion right away. At first, I was a bit irritated by what I had thought were the author's biases and self-confidence, but as I kept reading, I began appreciating and even enjoying his candid and confident style that communicated strong experience of dealing with the issues. Not since the time when the ARM ("The Annotated C++ Reference Manual" by Margaret A. Ellis and Bjarne Stroustrup) and Stroustrup's "The C++ Programming Language" were published years ago have I read a C++ book that impressed me as much! If Stroustrup's books focus on the description of C++ facilities, this book concentrates on its programming practice.The author's knowledge of the C++ standard and the compiler mechanics makes his arguments very compelling.

Although anybody familiar with C++ will benefit from this book since it covers a wide range of C++ features, as well as programming and support issues, the book should appeal most of all to the mature audience: one has to be mature to understand the value in developing a program that will sustain years of maintenance by others rather than the one that will only run most of the time without crashing.

I'm sure most of you have heard about, skimmed through, or read Scott Meyers 50 or 35 tips on C++ and if you thought those were good books then I'm sure you'll find that this book is a lot better. The book is organized in a similar format and basically you get 99 good tips in one book rather than 50 or 35 from the other books, so it's a lot of value for the money you spend. This book doesn't seem to get much hype compared to the other C++ books I've read due to there being only 6 reviews for this on Amazon, but I felt that it was one of the better ones I've read for quite some time. The coding and examples didn't insult your intelligence by repeating the same snippet of pre-algebra code that I often see in many books. This book may not catch your eye when you first look at it at the bookstore, it didn't mine at first. I saw this on the shelf for nearly a year and I never bothered to pick it up because every time I thumbed through it I never got a true glimpse of what it was. Then I decided one day to buy it because of the Addison Wesley name and it turned out to be a gem. Better than Meyers and Sutters as well and those are excellent series as well. I'm sure if you liked those then you'll like this one too.

I forced myself through the first chapter (first 12 Gotchas) and decided that I'd rather spend my time somewhere else.

First, many practices preached in this book are questionable. Quoted from the book: "I've received strong, negative, and sometimes abusive reactions to my use of every one of the constructs above." (Gotcha #7).

The author is against himself all the time - best described in his own words. In Gotcha #11: "Unnecessary cleverness is a common problem with C++ programmers. Remember that it's nearly always preferable to be conventional, clear, and slightly less efficient than unnecessarily clever, unclear, and unmaintainable." In Gotcha #12: "We programmers are good at dispensing advice but often have a hard time following it."

The editorial (or organizing?) quality is not superior either. For example, Gotcha #8's title "Failure to Distinguish Access and Visibility" doesn't describe what is discussed in that section.

The author's arrogant and condescending attitude doesn't make the reading very pleasant.

The reason I gave two instead of one star is that the author is obviously very knowledgeable in C++ language. This is NOT one of those useless garbage books. You do have a chance to pick up some tricks here and there. But if you're busy and still want to learn something valuable as quick as you can, I suggest read or just re-read Stroustrup, or try Meyers's Effective C++.

If you can learn from other peoples mistakes then this book will save you a lot of pain. C++ is one of those languages that can dish out the pain if you don't understand what it's doing (and not doing) for you. The book presents 99 gotchas, starting with procedural issues (e.g. useless comments, etc.), but quickly gets into C++ technical issues.

An example is gotcha #70, where you didn't define a virtual destructor in the base class. It's something that the old dogs know to do, but if you didn't know it then you can get stung badly and it will take you a lot of frustration to figure out.

If you liked Effective C++ and More Effective C++ you will probably like this book. Either way, if you are a professional C++ programmer this book can save you a lot of pain.

There are unlikely to be many other C++ books where the word 'ignoramus' appears as often. Dewhurst's writing definitely has character. This book contains 99 items on common mistakes made by C++ programmers, and serves up best practices to replace those bad habits.

Does this sound a bit familiar? Well, yeah, there's substantial overlap with books by Scott Meyers and Herb Sutter, so not every item is a revelation. That said, C++ is sufficiently complicated that I can do with all the help I can get. This also covers some more basic material than others, for example new-style casts. It also covers pointers to members and pointers to member functions very well.

However, there isn't any material on templates here, and there's quite a lot of overlap with the author's subsequent book, 'C++ Common Knowledge', which I consider to be superior to this one. So while this is a perfectly good book, I would point you towards C++ Common Knowledge.

There's little in the problems identified by this book or in the solutions suggested that I would disagree with. However, I didn't really learn anything new and surprising from it either.

This book may have its place as a beginner's supplement to Meyer's _Effective C++_ books and Sutter's _Exceptional C++_ books. I wouldn't recommend it for advanced C++ programmers, though.

This is a rather unprofessional and poorly organized tome. The author is arrogant and condescending and seems to perceive his reader as an idiot. The gotchas often seem schizophrenic and jump all over the place. While there are some nuggets betwixt the pages, it's so painful to read, I couldn't recommend this to anyone.

Stick with Effective C++ and Exceptional C++. This book doesn't even come close to the clarity and appropriateness in language and style (particularly of Effective C++).

There are dozens books about C++ on the market and this one is clearly under the top ten. It's a wonderful book for beginners and programmers at an intermediate level. For the pros it's fun to read it, because: I made all this mistakes a few years ago. The perhaps only flaw ( I found in the whole book only one real mistake, or my compiler (gcc) is wrong , and I know it's not) of this book: it's too short. If you are making your first steps in C++, then buy this book.

This book, along with Dewhurst's other one, C++ Common Knowledge: Essential Intermediate Programming should be mandatory reading for C++ programmers.

No groundbreaking discoveries, only problems you are guaranteed to come against while developing in C++, solutions and advice. Some gotchas are pretty well known, others I haven't found in any other book, while most of them were a refresher or clarifier.

Read it so you won't have to learn these lessons the hard way, in the debugger.