Customer Reviews

C++ Strategies and Tactics

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

For the reviewer below that stated that this book is dated because it does not cover templates could not be farther from reality, as apparently he has not read the book nor has he looked at the table of contents. If my eyes are still functional, this book has two chapters consectutive dedicated to to templates, chapter 7 [Templates] and 8[Advanced Templates]. This book is easy to read and for the novice wanting to get up to speed on the syxtax of the language and more importantly when and how to use each contruct of the language, this book has no equal except two other books. The books are Kayshav Dattatri's C++ Effective Object Oriented Software Construction and James O. Copliens Advanced C++: Styles and Idioms from Prentice Hall and Addison Wesley respectively. This book is not even 300 pages which allows you to read it again and bolster what you vacumed on the first pass and ready for instinctive mastery for the second and third passes if you are really ambitious. The discussion on smart pointers is informative and will assist you in your way to patternizing COM code. This book is for all experience types and serves as a perfect desktop reference guide for C++ masters alike. With this book and the two mentioned above, plus the C++ IO Streams Handbook by Beale, there are no other books you should refer to, probably including Stroustrup's.

Once you have good knowledge of the basics and know basic OOP, you should start reading this book. This book has lots of good information reguarding design and loop holes all new programer can commit. But its best feature is that its so easy to understand.

If you are confused about templates or about the design of class hierarchies this place is a very good place to start.
The writing is rather compact and to the point and avoids the trap of getting the reader into a long boring example.
Yes sure, it's dated, (this book was written before STL came on the scene, but many of its ideas are there) but you may not need all the latest features of C++ right now. You should ease your self into C++.
It's a little more advanced than an introduction but it won't weigh you down, and hey the book is light enough that you can read it in bed.
It's a testimony to the idea that a well designed object has a very long lifespan.

Like Tom Cargill's C++ Programming Style, this is another widely-recognised classic of the genre which has lost some of its immediacy with the passing of time.

If you're familiar with the works of Scott Meyers and Herb Sutter, then you will probably not find much here that you don't already know (although this clearly predates some of their output). But if you're still fairly new to OO, I recommend this highly as your first non-introductory book. It's got a much more cohesive feel than the Effective C++ and Exceptional C++ books, and unlike the Cargill book, it's sufficiently modern to have covered templates. Bear in mind, though, that the 'advanced' templates chapter is about writing a linked list class. Solid data structure stuff for sure, but not what a C++ practitioner would consider advanced these days.

You can also find lots of solid OOP advice, although you may find it similar to the OOP wisdom dispensed in other C++ of the same vintage. There are some suggestions on 'reusability', although they're more concerned with memory management, and feels more like optimisation. That's not to say that it isn't interesting and accessible, though.

There's a brief introduction to exceptions, but at the time the book was written, they had only just appeared in the language. Likewise, there's nothing about namespaces here.

My 4-star rating takes into account that you can obtain this book cheaply and the material is presented in a clear, readable fashion. If you're already an experienced object oriented programmer, you can safely bypass this book and go straight to the Meyers and Sutter books. If you're not, then this is a good place to start the journey to more advanced work.

This was the original book of C++ "idioms and traps", full of practical details such as where to use virtual destructors and the correct way to write the copy constructor and assignment operators. Then Scott Meyer's book came along with such sparkle and wit that I put this book aside, even though they pretty much covered the same ground. The second edition of Meyers' book covers the new ANSI standard - and while this was needed, it has a fair amount of "code lawyering" and is no longer a breeze to read. I'm glad I held onto the Murray book to cover the basic concepts, even though it's slightly out of date.

You have to know that its target audience is beginner C++ programmers. I am somehow experienced with C++ programming and by looking at the excellent reviews this book got, I had high expectations when I purchased it. I have been disappointed to only have found maybe 2 small advices that I did not know. Reading over 250 pages for a so small reward has been disappointing. If you consider yourself good in C++, my advice is that you should skip this one.

Robert Murray's book is fantastic. It is very useful to help a programmer progress from being a beginner to at least an intermediate level C++ programmer. After having read 2 introductory books, I was having trouble finding a book that would help me progress as a C++ programmer. All the books were too elementary or too esoteric (like design patterns). Then I found "C++ Strategies and Tactics" and my prayers were answered. It's so good that I read it twice. I strongly recommend this book. I wish a 2nd edition would come out, now that we have an ANSI Standard C++.

I've bought this book last year, and i every week use it to deepen my understanding of subtelties of C++. I've enjoyed more the firt chapter about class and the last about templates. The numerous examples give quick and clear comprehension with a clear test. Absolutly excellent !

This is a clearly written introduction to some of the subtleties of C++, discussing topics which you otherwise might not think about until they came back to bite you. I would recommend it for the C programmer migrating to C++, and possibly for the junior programmer who is just starting professional work. Note that it is slightly dated; for example, templates and namespaces are not mentioned.