Customer Reviews

Teach Yourself...C++

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(14)

 

 

I'm not finished with this book, but am very pleased so far. Stevens' organization and completeness are excellent. He tries to go from simpler concepts to more complex ones, and not get ahead of himself. It's difficult to do this with a topic like programming, where everything is interrelated!

The instruction is pretty easy to follow, and the examples are very apt and easy to understand, with good variable names. Unlike most C++ books, Stevens' does not assume you know C. I did notice a couple of places in the book where it might be hard to get the concept if you had never used C at all, but I think if you kept reading and tried the examples, you could figure it out. I highly recommend this book to anyone who needs to learn C on their own. The only criticism I have is about the editing and proofing quality (typos in code, scratches on printing plates) but only editorial types like me would notice such details. Well worth the money if you don't have time to take a C++ class.

I purchased this book at my local generic book store since its offerings in C++ texts were quite limited. I regret making the decision to buy this book.

Al Stevens makes note that his book does not require any prior programming experience, but I found his textbook extremely difficult to work with and often unreadable. His explanations of looping and nesting were awful; had I not purchased Steven Prata's C++ Primer Plus, I would never understand these concepts.

His style of writing is hard to follow. For a C++ text, it is surprisingly small and concise, but that is because Stevens makes extensive use of undefined jargon that leave the reader in the dust. Often the order of topics presented left me fumbling around referring to other parts of the text to figure out what was going on. If the reader has no prior knowledge of C, this text would likely be practically unpalatable.

It would be wise to find another textbook. If you're looking for an introductory C++ text, I suggest Prata's C++ Primer Plus. If you're an advanced programmer looking to brush up on technique and theory, Stroustrup's The C++ Programming Language would be the most prudent choice.

C++ is difficult enough without bombarding a newcomer with long complicated examples. This is the beauty of this book. Stevens is a clear concise writer. Each example is short and isolated without being trivial. Unlike 'for Dummies' books no time is wasted testing the writers comedy writing skills.

This book is complete enough to be both a good tutorial and a handy reference. I recommend it highly as an introductory text.

The author states that this book is intended for beginning to intermediate pc users, but I found this is woefully mistargeted. I have been reading the book and am shocked at how hastily and unsatisfiably new topics are introducted. For example, the topic of pointers is thrown at the reader without even a discussion of what * or & means. The whole slew of pointer syntax possibilities is laid out in front of you, but without a description of why and how each statement does what it does.

Intermediate "programmers" - not "pc users" as the author claims - would probably not get lost in this book, but even then a great deal of 'how & why' is missing.

Summary - there are much better introductory C++ books out there.

This is the first time that I have written a review of a book I haven't finished reading -- and probably won't. I bought this book for the advertised purposed -- to teach myself C++, and as someone who started programming in 1965 (that's nineteen SIXTY-five) in assembly language, and has learned a number of languages since then, I didn't anticipate much difficulty here.

On the plus side, the layout is nice, the book is clear and pretty well written, it seems to be complete, and the CD-ROM does provide a good learning tool.

On the minus side, there are major errors that seem to have crept in between the fifth and sixth editions of the book (I compared my copy with a fifth edition owned by a friend). The first ones were pretty obvious and easy to figure out if you were paying attention to what you were reading. But when I discovered that the code example that should have been #5-12 was actually a reprint of #5-2 with the notes from what should have been #5-12 I began to wonder how much care had been applied to checking this book.

Then I did the personal workbook questions at the end of chapter five and discovered that the answer key simply omitted the answers to questions 7 & 8 -- both of which I happened to want to check myself on.

At that point I decided that I couldn't trust this source any more, sent an e-mail to the publisher pointing out the errors I had spotted to date, and put the book away.

In a classroom situation where a teacher could point out the errors and work around them, this wouldn't be a big problem. However, when the book is designed so people can teach themselves, there's no human intervention to cover for the errors -- so they simply shouldn't be there.

I really tried to like this one. When I bought it, I liked the intro where Mr. Stevens said he wouldn't throw technical jargon at the reader, but then he does precisely that. Of course, C++ is full of jargon. The problem is that he frequently uses terms he doesn't define, combining such jargon into indecipherable explanations only an engineer could understand. Once I got past the stuff in the first few chapters which I already knew, I was lost.

Take pointers (please). Unlike Bruce Eckel's book (Thinking in C++, Vol 1), Mr. Stevens never explains WHY they are useful, or what practical benefit they provide. You are lead through rote steps and left with no understanding. The material is too terse. Learning such a complex topic as C++ is more than learning syntax. Yes, he tells you the mechanical things you can do with pointers, but never says why you would want to do them in the first place. Same with unions; his very brief description left me completely in the dark. Once again, Bruce Eckel to the rescue.

The idea of a book like this is a good one, but if it claims it is for programming beginners, it must deliver. This one seems more geared toward impressing beginners with the author's knowledge. I don't think that was his intention, but that is the result.

This author seems to like to make himself sound smart with long words and complicated paragraphs. Its highly annoying as no one has any idea what he's on about. For example, look at this quote I took from the book:

"CLASSES Classes are agggregate declarations consisting of data member functions. A class encapsules the implementation and iterface or a user defined data abstaract data type, also know as user defined type. The class's implementation - its private members - is unavailable to the programmer who instantiates objects of the class. The class's public interface is provided in the form of methods - public member that operate on numbers."

Thats the example on Classes. those who feel enlightened, this book is for you. Those of us who just went "what?!", this book is not for you. Oh, and by the way, that was in chapter one page 15, in the lenghy and boring introduction.

I'm an Assembler and Algol programmer from way back (1960's) wanting to hone up my C skills into C++. This book managed to bring together all the features I needed, in the order that I wanted it, and to the level of detail I need to survive as an IT professional. You get the tutorials and the opportunity to try things for yourself and to make mistakes (in private). What more can you ask for the price? Get this book - it's a bargain! And its informative.

This author seems to like to make himself sound smart with long words and complicated paragraphs. Its highly annoying as no one has any idea what he's on about. For example, look at this quote I took from the book:

"CLASSES Classes are agggregate declarations consisting of data member functions. A class encapsules the implementation and iterface or a user defined data abstaract data type, also know as user defined type. The class's implementation - its private members - is unavailable to the programmer who instantiates objects of the class. The class's public interface is provided in the form of methods - public member that operate on numbers."

Thats the example on Classes. those who feel enlightened, this book is for you. Those of us who just went "what?!", this book is not for you. Oh, and by the way, that was in chapter one page 15, in the lenghy and boring introduction.

This book lacks in technical detail and there's too many unnecessary words. Examples are lousy.