Customer Reviews

Introduction to Programming with C++ (Visual Studio)

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Wonderful for absolute beginners to programming. The first 3 chapters teach nothing but logic. What this book covers, it covers excellently for those with no experience with the language. She leaves no item un-explained, and she assumes extremely little (which obviously offends pretentious types).

The problem? The book covers (probably) the least of any decent beginner's C++ book. Doesn't get into pointers, etc. it mentions them very sparsely, but it doesn't "cover" them. It also doesn't give much real world information, such as the variable++ convention (she uses variable = variable + 1).

I would recomend this book to someone who wants to learn C++ but has absolutely no programming experience and little-to-no experience with computers in general. If you are looking for a challenge, I would suggest Deitel and Deitel's C++ How to Program. If your intelligence is easily insulted DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK. It is written on a 6th grade level, but it DOES get the job done.

I just finished an introduction C++ programming course, where this book was the required text and I found the book to be great! As a "newbie" to the programming venue, Zak's book clearly spelled everything out, with clear and concise examples. There were also plenty of exercises to complete to help the student gain the confidence and understanding of this language!

Even though I felt that I was learning a "foreign language", I felt like I really came away with a thorough understanding of an foundational aspects of C++.

Some students, I am sure, will find the book too "simplistic" or maybe even beneath them, but as a "newbie" I found the book perfect for what I was trying to accomplish.

This is actually a book where once could sit down and teach oneself the fundamentals of C++ and one will feel confident as one completes the programming exercises. I thought the book was excellent and I came away from the course with a great foundation of intro C++.

I thoroughly recommend this book!

I knew nothing about C++ when I began reading this book but when I finished I had some kind of understanding about it. I found it very easy to read and the exercises helped me get more hands on with C++. I like Diane's use of anologies, which brought me to a conclusion that C++ was designed based on real life. If you don't know anything about C or C++ this is an excellent book to start you off.

Wanna learn C++? Buy Zak's book!

Zak's "Introduction to Programming with C++" is an easy to understand and follow book that will help beginners quickly grasp and begin using the major concepts of C++. The explanations are very thorough, and each lesson contains several programming examples that reinforce the new concept, each explained thoroughly, line by line. By following Zak's lessons and doing a handful of the exercises included at the end of each lesson, an absolute rock bottom beginner will quickly be creating 2 dimensional arrays and whipping up classes just as if they'd been doing it their whole lives.

While this is an outstanding text for learning, it's lousy as reference for later on when you want to quickly review a concept or some syntax. Buy Zak's book first and invest in a good reference book when you're done. You'll be glad you did.

I purchased this book as a requirement for my Summer Term C++ class and I have to tell you that there wasn't one person in class that had anything but admiration and thankfullness (LoL) that a book was written with the (imagine this now, lol) beginner in mind.

If I could give it a 10 I would.

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Here is the Contents (I typed it right from the book):

An Overview of a Microcomputer System, An Introduction to Control Structures, Beginning the Problem-Solving Process,

Completing the Problem-Solving Process and Getting Started with C++, Variables, Constants, Arithmetic Operators, and Assignment Statements, Built-In Functions, Program-Defined Value-Returning Functions, Program-Defined Void Functions, The Selection Structure, More on the Selection Structure, The Repetition Structure, Manipulating Characters and Strings, Classes and Objects, Sequential Access Files, and Arrays.

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All necessary concepts for the beginner. She explains things thoroughly, consistently, and best of all CLEARLY. It may seem elementary and TOO easy for those who already have the above-mentioned concepts--but understand that there is a great need for books written like this one. Why does it have to be difficult to understand?

She does an excellent job on all of her books. Students at the college I attend love her books and learn a firm, clear understanding of concepts necessary to learn not only this, but other languages.

Throughout this book she makes references to the similiarities and differences between C++, Visual Basic, and Java. There are student data disks you can download from the publishers website that are necessary for the completion of most of the exercises AND you get a working copy of Microsoft's Visual Basic C++ to use to compile, build, and run your programs.

The only thing you may not be aware of is this book focuses (except for two chapters where Object-Oriented concepts are introduced) almost entirely of procedural programming concepts.

Make no mistake, this book is awesome.

C++ is not an easy language to master and many basic programming concepts are difficult to grasp when you are starting out. But this book makes learning it easy. I normally program in Visual Basic, but I picked up this book to challenge the Colorado Technical University CS104 course and worked through it during the evenings in just one week. This book is chuck full of wonderful exercises to help drill C++ basics home. And the layout is easy to understand and follow. The code examples are straight-forward and match up to the chapter lessons. This book does not get into programming techniques, only the basics of the C++ language syntax. Coincidently, CTU uses the Deitel and Deitel book (mentioned by Barlowe below) in their followup class CS115, the basics are discussed in the first few chapters of Deitel's book as well, but Deitel's doesn't have the exercises to practice with.

I knew absolutely nothing about programming when I first started studying C++ using Diane's book. Now I feel like the world's biggest expert! (Even though I know I have a ways to go). Topics are very well organized, and very clearly explained. Chapters are detailed carefully enough so as not to be intimidating. The "Debugging" excercises were my favorite - a great tool for mastering code! Excellent job Diane Zak. You've made the difference!

Like the logical layout and development concepts of the material. It's easy to follow and build the programming concept. Would be nice to have answers to the Multiple Choice Questions. The problems are good and somewhat easy to debug. Final 2 chapters in the book since harder to understand. Could be we're done with the class and have lesser interest to work on it. Overall, definitely recommend this book and keep it as reference book.

This book is great for beginners. This book begins by explaining very basic computer concept such as what is hardware, what is software. Then she covers the algorithm concept. And then finally go into C++. This book is not so bad, but I thought there is too many readings at once. Especially first part was pretty boring. I would recomend her to make readings more fragment. People hate to read. There are some nice excersise in this book. why not put them between the readings more often? Also, she uses some C++ complicated keywords and don't much explain what it is with some of them. Or she just simply says don't worry about it right now. But there could be better way to deal with other than don't worry about it now. First off, I wouldn't use such complicated keywords in early chapter. there are a lot of ways to explain thins without complicated keyword such as bool, type conversion with parentheses and so forth. But like I said, this book wasn't so bad.