Sams Teach Yourself C++ in 21 Days (5th Edition) (Paperback)

by Jesse Liberty (Author), Bradley L. Jones (Author) "This book is designed to help you teach yourself how to program with C++..." (more)
Key Phrases: mammal constructor, cat destructor, const int age, Change Values, Workshop The Workshop, Cat Frisky (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Join the leagues of thousands of programmers and learn C++ from some of the best. The fifth edition of the best seller Sams Teach Yourself C++ in 21 Days, written by Jesse Liberty, a well-known C++ and C# programming manual author and Bradley L. Jones, manager for a number of high profiler developer websites, has been updated to the new ANSI/ISO C++ Standard. This is an excellent hands-on guide for the beginning programmer. Packed with examples of syntax and detailed analysis of code, fundamentals such as managing I/O, loops, arrays and creating C++ applications are all covered in the 21 easy-to-follow lessons. You will also be given access to a website that will provide you will all the source code examples developed in the book as a practice tool. C++ is the preferred language for millions of developers-make Sams Teach Yourself the preferred way to learn it!

About the Author

Jesse Liberty is the author of numerous books on software development, including best-selling titles in C++ and .NET. He is the president of Liberty Associates, Inc. (http://www.LibertyAssociates.com) where he provides custom programming, consulting, and training.

Bradley Jones, Microsoft MVP, Visual C++, can be referred to as a webmaster, manager, coding grunt, executive editor, and various other things. His time and focus are on a number of software development sites and channels, including Developer.com, CodeGuru.com, DevX, VBForums, Gamelan, and other Jupitermedia-owned sites. This influence expands over sites delivering content to over 2.5 million unique developers a month.

His expertise is in the area of the big "C"s—C, C++, and C#—however, his experience includes development in PowerBuilder, VB, some Java, ASP, COBOL I/II, and various other technologies too old to even mention now. He has also been a consultant, analyst, project lead, associate publisher for major technical publishers, and author. His recent authoring credits include Sams Teach Yourself the C# Language in 21 Days, a 6th edition of Sams Teach Yourself C in 21 Days, and now this edition of Sams Teach Yourself C++ in 21 Days. He is also the cofounder and president of the Indianapolis .NET Developers Association, which is a charter INETA group with membership of over 700. You can often hear his ramblings on the CodeGuru.com or VBForums.com discussion forums, and he also does the weekly CodeGuru newsletter that goes out to tens of thousands of developers.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 936 pages
• Publisher: Sams; 5 edition (December 24, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0672327112
• ISBN-13: 978-0672327117
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.3 x 2.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #221,096 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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• This item is part of The Sams Teach Yourself Series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Coverage, but examples can be rather bland..., July 12, 2006

By	Ashraf Eassa "Ash" (New Hampshire, USA) - See all my reviews

I've always been rather hesitant to read programming books with titles that imply a sacrifice of depth for gained ease in learning, but this book is a very well done and complete treatment of the fundamentals of the C++ language.

It assumes no previous knowledge -- just a willingness to learn. It begins with "Hello, World", the classic example first introduced in the K&R C book, and then continues for the next few "days" to cover the funamental C aspects such as basic I/O, variables, functions, branching, data types, and operators.

After that preliminary information is covered, the authors begin showing basic class useage -- the general form of a class, constructors, destructors, data members, and member functions.

In the final "day" of the "week", control statements (for, do...while, switch, etc.) are given a good, and thorough treatment.

The next "week" moves on to more advanced concepts such as pointers, reference variables, function overloading, inheritance, and polymorphism. By the end of this week, you will be pretty proficient, and probably ready to implement more substantial projects, however, the book still covers more.

In the last week, other, more advanced, concepts are introduced such as friend functions, file manipulation, low level bit manipulation, and a lot more to help you become a master of this beast of a language.

This book also goes through each and every example program and provides a thorough analysis -- so you're never left in the dark as to what a program is doing or how.

This work does have some shortcomings, but they're not that significant. Yes, some of the example programs are extremely boring and you're left thinking whether you should bother entering and compiling them. Sometimes explanations are offered for the most trivial of concepts in programs, but overall, it's a great book at a great price.

In short, if you want to learn C++ and you want to learn it thoroughly, then this is your book!

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars An interesting book overall, September 2, 2005

By	Panayotis Kalaitzoglou "Panayotis" (Greece) - See all my reviews

Teach Yourself C++ in 21 days (Sams) is a quite good candidate for anyone looking for an introductory book on C++. It not only represents a smooth introduction to the language basics, but also offers valuable advice on good programming and design practices. I especially liked the Q&A section at the end of each chapter.
What differentiates it from similar introductory C++ books is the way the material is laid out. After covering the langugage syntax the authors try to put forward what they consider easier to understand. This makes it easier for the reader, although the book cannot be used as a reference.
There are numerous code examples, which are compact, well structured and easy to follow and understand.
However, there are a few things that I believe could definetely be improved. First and foremost templates and the STL are not covered until Day 19, which means that all the code samples until then use the old C libraries. My opinion is that since templates represent a whole new programming paradigm, they have to be introduced much earlier, although they can be a bit difficult to grasp. Not only that, but the code uses deprecated headers mixed with standard library headers (e.g. 13.12 - p.435, 13.7 - p.423); it is more natural to use <cstring> than <string.h> at least.
Also assertions should definetely be introduced earlier and used in the code samples.The custom string class bound checking should report error (assert) when out of bounds and not return the last element! (13.14 - p.437).
Moreover I consider function pointers a not so important topic to be covered on Day 15. I would prefer to see it in an Appendix, near deprecated features really. Chapter titles should probably be revised too. E.g. Day 16 is named "Advanced Inheritance", but aggregation which is covered there is not actually inheritance. The chapter would be better named "Other class relationships", or even better "Aggregation" and cover only aggregation.
I also believe it is important to pair each new() with a delete (e.g. 12.10 - p.398) even though the program ends. This is a very important programming habit that someone should get used to very early.
Overall I believe that this book, although it has some weak points, has much to offer to someone that starts learning C++.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Complete in content..., December 11, 2005

By	Siddhartha Rao "Microsoft MVP - Visual C++" (Germany) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The book deals with C++ and related nuances exhaustively. For a beginner, this book can also make a good reference if all he wishes to read about is specific language related details.

The authors have taken care to be elaborate, and have presented concepts such as pointers, constants, and streams lucidly - to name a few.

I would like to see a re-arrangement of content in the next version. For example: the chapter on OOAD comes too early - even before Inheritance (and Polymorphism) in C++ has been introduced. Similarly, templates are discussed in detail before macros have been introduced. Some exercises that are very lengthy can be broken into smaller /simpler ones.

My advise to a beginner would be to focus on the content he is able to grasp, and keep the rest for another reading. Yes, this is a book that can be read more than once as it deals with topics that are a beginner's level and beyond (which in my opinion is good).