Customer Reviews

Object-Oriented Programming in C++/Book and Disk (The Waite Group)

5 star:		(28)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Robert Lafore fills this book with an abundance of useful and VERY helpful information for programmers at almost any level. There is however a downside, the book is also full of typographical errors, and just plain careless mistakes. Anyone that can overlook all of the errors would be advised to purchase this book. It does cover many aspects of C++ that I have not seen in most books, so it is close to complete. The author also is rather inconsistent with the terms that he uses, and he uses them interchangably without warning. Here is a listing of the main topics covered in this book:

Chapters 1 - 7: cover the most widely known and used elementary features of C++, Basic Basics, Loops and Decisions, Structures, Functions, Classes, Arrays and Strings.

Chapter 8: Operator overloading. Overloading operators like '+', '-', '*', '/' and others for use with your "homemade" classes.

Chapter 9: Inheritance and Multiple Inheritance. Reusing classes and derriving child classes.

Chapter 10: Pointers. Accessing memory locations and values using references etc.

Chapter 11: Virtual Functions and Polymorphism. Overloading functions inherited by child classes.

Chapter 12: Streams and Files. Reading and writing to drives and other devices such as printers and serial ports.

Chapter 13: Multifiles programs. Creating your own header files, and standard setups for projects.

Chapter 14: Templates and Exceptions. Making models of functions and classes for use with several different types. And passing errors using 'throw' and 'catch'.

The author also does cover some rather 'advanced' techniques. Some of which are advanced because not everyone knows how to do it:

Overloading type casts. Overloading the '<<' and '>>' operators to work with streams and "homemade" classes. Defying maxint on your system with strings.

All in all the book contains plenty of very good information.

I am reading this book for a university C++ class and taken as a whole, the text is pretty good. The complaints I do have are as follows:

When the author introduces a new concept, he has the habit of including multiple new items at the same time within a program. For a novice programming student like myself, I found this to be confusing and irritating at times. He has a tendency towards elaborate wiz-bang examples when simple, to the point examples would be much easier for the novice to understand and follow (the point of the book in the first place)

Some aspects like privately & publicly derived object classes left me longing for additional explanation. The explanation of arrays and the actual index or "slot" postion being referred to (ie: the first slot is "0" and not "1") left me hanging for a while also. The area on creating stacks and heaps also left me wanting more.

I would have liked to have seen more workbook style examples with mutiple "snip-its" of code which required to reader to find the correct code or find the errors. (This may not be the place for this, but Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, has a "College Outline Series" workbook called: "Computer Language C" which is EXCELLENT for the novice programmer.{ISBN 0-15-601562-5, Pub in '89} The only problem is that the authors, Eugene Veklerov & Olga Pekelny haven't done one for C++. -Atleast not that I know of.)

Lastly, and this is just a personal thing, I would have liked to have seen most of the programs kept on a single page instead of breaking then up between two pages. This also made it harder to follow.

This book, like Herbert Schildt's titles seems to score well in reader reviews, despite glaring technical errors. One of the problems with reader reviews is that the beginners reviewing a book are often unaware when they've been mislead by a book that makes statements that are either misleading or outright false. My main complain about this book is that it introduces a lot of nonstandard, Windows-specific functions (getch(), getche() ) early in the book, and advises beginners to use these in place of standard functions. They are introduced as functions that are "in the library" but the author doesn't seem to understand (or is not willing to admit) that they are not from the C++ standard library.

As a result, a lot of the code is useless to non-windows users, and the book is misleading and perhaps even dangerous -- the last thing we need is a generation of programmers who don't understand the difference between Win32 and C++. I have no objection to discussing platform specific features -- which are treated very well in books by Stevens (UNIX), Petzold and Prosise (Windows). But I have a gripe about introducing them by stealth in a book that is pretending to be aboput ANSI C++.

This is a pity, because these flaws make unusable what might otherwise be a decent book. On the good side, it emphasises object oriented features of the language, as opposed to taking the traditional "C-first" approach. But it's not an ANSI C++ book (hence unsuitable for beginners), and those who are looking for good books on Windows programming will see a considerably more rigorous treatment of that subject matter in other books (eg by Bates, Petzold, Prosise, Templeman)

To tell you how good this book is for beginners, this was my textbook for a formal intro to C++ class that my company sent me to. The book played a huge part in the class being a success. I felt very confident on my next project that involved C++ and it's still a solid reference.

After my recent review of this book, I received requests from several people to provide sample solutions to the exercises from different portions of the book. I decided to take the libertly to just do all of them. If anyone would like to get ahold of some or all of the exercises, email me, and I will be sure to send you a copy of them promptly.

I've read this book for a Programming course at FCT/UNL, Portugal.

The main goal on learning C++ is to learn the object-oriented mode of programming.

When the author introduces virtual functions (wich are the heart of OOP) and classes (!), only past the middle of the book, he is inducing the reader on to program C++ with no OO concepts, thus doing the old-way: procedural programming.

That's the only 'caveat'. THe book is quite good.

If you wan't to learn C++ to your life, get also a OOP book. If you are only interested in doing some hacks with objects :-) this book is a good choice.

Regards

Robert Lafore's OOP in C++ is the best introductory book to C++ programming. He teaches for understanding and takes you from the bottom up. Every concept is demonstrated with program codes so that you'll not only know that such a syntax exists but how to use it.

Other beginner books on C++ dumps you with tons of information but do not focus on understanding or learning. Reading those books is like learning English from a dictionary. Lafore understands what goes through your mind as you read his text and he addresses those questions straight into the point.

You'll definitely not regret buying this book.

An excellent book on C++ for those individuals with little or no programming experience. Easy to understand language, lots of sample code, and plenty of simple diagrams make this a great self-teaching book. Intermediate and advanced programmers would find this book too simplistic.

This manual takes you step-by-step through programming in C++. It refers to Borland's C++ compiler. It also uses a LOT of C syntax, and stays away from Object Oriented programming through most of the book.

If you are interested in learning Micro$oft's Visual C++, this is not the book for you. If you have Borland's free C++ compiler and a penchant for learning traditional programming, this is the book for you. Use it like a class-in-a-book.

Sure, this book has some faults (as do all others I've read), but, overall, it is excellent. I'll take its bad with its good over many other OOP C++ books I've examined. This book lives up to the title and does it well.

I really like the arrangement of the book, which seems non-standard based on my examinations. This is the most OOP-strong C++ book I've found. They all teach OOP eventually, but this one makes it a very high priority, putting off more complicated topics that are not essential to getting into OOP (for example, arrays, strings, and pointers come after OOP has been introduced). There is a lot to be said for such an arrangement in my opinion. I think the longer a book waits to teach OOP, the harder it is to learn it. The reader gets more and more procedure-oriented with every chapter that precedes OOP. Kudos to Mr. Lafore

The book is very easy to understand yet still explains concepts thoroughly enough for all but the experts. I found the example programs to be good. More importantly, to me, I found the analogies used to explain complex topics to be good. For example, in chapter one, Mr. Lafort first intorduces the OO paradigm (yeah! OOP in ch1!) with an analogy to the basic structure of a company being divided into departments (sales, accounting, HR, etc.).

This should not be your only C++ book, but if you want to learn C++, this is a great book to get you well on your way.