Customer Reviews

Ivor Horton's Beginning ANSI C++: The Complete Language (Expert's Voice)

5 star:		(38)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Horton's explanation of C++ is the clearest and most throrough I've ever read. He really makes object-oriented programming seem almost intuitive where other authors only muddle it. He's excellent at anticipating exactly what questions the reader is going to have as he's reading, and giving the details that answer them. However, I would recommend doing a little bit of a good introductory C book first. While the book purports to be for complete beginners, it may be a little harsh at first if you've never programmed before.

Also, the last chapter, on the STL, is awful. For some reason, Horton decided to let somebody else write it, and no offense to that person, but the clear explanatory style you've grown to expect in the first 19 chapters suddenly disappears and the concepts become very difficult to grasp. The "How it works" sections in this last chapter leave you more confused than you were before you read them, and I don't even think the chapter gives you enough information to be able to do the exercises at the end. I wish Horton would rewrite it himself.

All in all, though, it's an excellent book.

If this book had come out 4 years ago, I wouldn't have stopped programming in C++. I took programming in high school but the books we used were so boring and stale, I hated programming.

Now I pick up this book, wow, this book makes programming fun! The book is clear and has lots of examples and he fully explains every line in the examples too. He gives you a few projects to do at the end of each chapter which are interesting and fun to do.

Since I used to program in C++, I can honestly say if someone asked me what a good book would be to buy to start programming I would recommend this one. It starts from the beginning and works upward at a good pace.

My C++ knowledge had obviously rusted completely over after four years, however this book very quickly brought it back into focus. This book hands down is awesome.

Anyone reading these reviews is obviously just getting started in C++, and if you're like I was 6 months ago, you're probably confused by all the "starter" books out there. Don't waste your time! Buy this book (and only this one until you get your feet wet) -- you will not be disappointed. The format/layout and efficiency of each chapter will keep you well focused and keep you from yanking your hair out. I needed a crash course in C++ and of course, it just couldn't be done (21 Days? Don't even think about it!) -- other books got me nowhere, but Ivor's book allowed me to spring into an Advanced C++ course with no prior training and keep my head above the water. Keep in mind the new ANSI/ISO standard, which Ivor covers in great detail. Do yourself a favor and minimize the headaches...start here!

This book is phenomenal!

I was enrolled in a C++ Objects class, designed as a final 'weed out' course my last semester of college and was having a very difficult time following the professor and terrible text. Ivor Horton came to the rescue with this book. Easy to read, great examples that build upon previous concepts, this book helped me bring my grade up to a B, saving my GPA.

Too many programming textbooks are written poorly, in an almost seemingly attempt to challenge/confuse the student. Schools and publishers should start thinking progressively and adapt Ivor Horton's approach to teaching.

As relative newcomer to the programming world, learning C++ is important to me. C++ is not an easy language to learn, and there are way too many books, which all rehash the same things, without thorough explanations of important details. This book filled in all the information that I missed in other C++ books. I'm constantly reading sections and thinking 'Wow, I wish I'd known about this before... so THAT'S why it's done this way...' etc. This book is a real eye opener, because it explains things clearly and simply. I wouldn't recommend it to a complete newbie, but it sure helped me. One other note... the examples will work only with a newer compiler (ANSI compliant), so VC5 or 6 are probably your best bet.

Make no mistake: if you're considering learning C++ on your own, this is the single most important book in your library. Mr. Horton exhibits the rare skill of making a difficult topic almost absurdly simple. The book is replete with examples and exercises, and the number of typographical errors is extremely low. This is a book that was written by an individual with an absolute mastery of C++, and that mastery shows; the result is a book that is both utterly precise and extremely simple to comprehend. However, this is not a light 'once over' of C++; the first half deals with elementary language constructs, while the last half is devoted to building a solid foundation in Object Oriented Programming (OOP). There is a wealth of information here, and any individual who chooses to complete the exercises and really learn the material can count himself as a competent C++ programmer.

What impressed me the most about Mr. Horton's book was the fluid, almost seamless way that one topic flows into another, each one reinforcing the last so that your skills build almost without your realizing it. Writing a book that is so expertly laid out simply cannot be done by most authors, and indeed there are dozens of examples of C++ primers that are terribly choppy and uneven in their presentation. Getting it right requires, not only an absolute intellectual mastery of the subject, but also that rare gift of being able to communicate your subject so clearly that learning becomes joyful. Mr. Horton enjoys that gift, and it is thoroughly utilized in this book.

On the cover, Mr. Horton makes the claim that anyone with this text, an up to date compiler and some dedication, can thoroughly learn C++. Of course, a lot of books make that claim.

This one's for real. Buy it.

After a review of 12 different textbooks for Beginning C++ I have selected Ivor Horton's Beginning ANSI C++: The Complete Language, Third Edition for use in my semester length college level Intro to C++ programming and my Intermediate C++ programming class. This is a community college and most of my students have NO programming background or experience. This text provides comprehensive semantics and syntax analysis of all examples. None of the confusing "shortcuts" and partial explanations found in most books. The author consistently uses "good programming" practices and provides clear and concise explanations for his use of specific constructs. I am especially delighted with the breadth of coverage and the well constructed index. Horton wrote the text that I used to learn C and I am happy to see he has continued to write with the same attention to detail and clarity. Highly recommended!

Can be used with any ANSI C++ compiler/IDE.

Ivar Horton may be an experienced programmer but he certainly isn't a great teacher. Having some experience with COBOL I purchased this book hoping to teach myself C++. The first couple of chapters cover very basic stuff and are easy to understand, but then Mr.Horton jumps to Bitwise Operators in chapter 3. This is incredibly confusing and complicated stuff for just the 3rd chapter, before you even learn about the IF statement. I am now learning about classes, constructors and operator overloading and I still have no idea what he was talking about in chapter 3. Moreover, Mr.Horton fails to explain WHY some of the things he explains should be used in the first place.

Another thing I found very frustrating was not being able to follow his examples with programs of my own. For example, after reading about strings I tried to create my own program which would accept a sentence from the user via cin>>, change the words to uppercase and output them to the screen as cout<<. After wrestling with errors for about 4 hours I finally gave up on it, only to find out later that the expression "toupper()" returns an integer(number) and has to be converted to char(letter) by using the expression "static_cast" first. Looking back through the chapters I found a very brief one-line mention of this. This is a very big deal, and he should have explained it in a lot more detail. I can give you tons of such examples, where he fails to point out the restraints of the code used in his own examples. Going back to strings, after using cin>>string, he doesn't tell the reader that this can only accept one word. Only later does he mention that, "by the way", in order to input a whole sentence you have to use getline(cin,string). At this point I had to ask myself why he had used that example before explaining the whole concept.

Overall the book is not entirely confusing. Some of the chapters are well written and helpful, I just wish the author had a better understanding of how beginners learn code. I wish he didn't use complicated code when trying to explain simple concepts and that he finnished explaining an entire concept before jumping to an example.

If you want to have a strong foundation in C++ read this book. All major C++ concepts are explained in detail. This book will reduce the number of situations where you feel, "AHH!!! Why wont this code work, my syntax and logic is perfect", because it is crammed full of even the most minor (yet very important in some cases) information.
If you are serious about C++ programming and want to start windows programming and/or game programming or any API/SDK programming this book is for you. However if you are not serious about programming with C++ find another book, because the author does go into detail on every topic. If you don't like C++ you may become bored.

P.S.
I must warn you sometimes the authors coding style may be difficult for true beginners to understand. Don't let this sway you, just keep at it and reread the code and explanations several times.

I found this book at the public library, it was the only one there on C++, so I got it, thinking "Hey, its free, so I can't complain". As soon as I started reading, I knew this was the perfect programming tutorial, and decided to buy a copy for myself. I've tried all the expensive books by mainstream book publishers such as the "for Dummies" series, and the O'Reilly books. Personally, I never understood them, and ended up spending more time asking for help from people online then I would ever like to acknowledge. This book organizes the information in the perfect order, so you're never flipping ahead or back to look up something because it isn't explained in the right place. I can't say enough good about this book. Two words- BUY IT!!