Customer Reviews

Visual C++ Templates (Prentice Hall Ptr Microsoft Technologies Series)

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

 

 

I have to qualify my one-star rating of this book. The book does an adequate job of explaining the origins and history of STL, and could be a reasonably good reference guide for STL and the Standard C++ headers if you don't already have one. Unfortunately, it stops there. The reason I rate it one star is that the back cover and inside flap seem to promise a great deal more meat than is actually present. I was expecting to see an integrated approach and examples of using STL with MFC classes (such as using an iterator to process a collection of MDI windows). No such luck. The examples are primarily command line interface applications using << cin and >> cout. Each chapter focuses on one template or standard header. The examples are aimed at showing how specific individual template features work rather than at combining capabilities of multiple templates or templates and MFC classes. All in all, I'd recommend spending your money on a book that doesn't promise to be something that it's not.

If you're looking for a good explanation of STL, you've found it. This book does a good job of explaining STL, even dedicating entire chapters to one template. However, on the inside flap, the authors promise six chapters dedicated to learning how to develop MFC Windows applications(including wizards, icons, cursors, menus, dialog boxes and more). THERE ARE NO CHAPTERS DEDICATED TO MFC!!! These chapters are nothing more than more STL explanations. Also, on page 361 of the book, there is actually a sentence that states: "Although the details for the use of the AppWizard are beyond the scope of this book, we can give you a few basic instructions." You are later told to just follow on-screen instructions in the AppWizard.
So unless you only want a book on STL or you can get a copy of this book VERY cheap ... I don't recommend it. I really don't understand how the authors got away with promising so much more than they actually delivered.

Cover to cover this book is about 520 pages. It concentrates on the Microsoft C++ compiler (what else is there).

The book clearly discussed standard C++ libraries and compares and contrasts them against the STL. You will find the standard coverage of <utility>, <functional>, <algorithm>, <iterator>, <vector>, <stack>, <queue> and <dequeue>, <list>, <map>, <numeric> and a whole lot more.

What sets this book apart from others is the crisp clear examples used. They are short and to the point. You won't get lost in a lot of code you don't care about. They teach just a few concepts in each example.

This book gets a high rating in my opinion. I wound it to be very helpful and I am now writing the bulk of my C++ code using STL information from this book.

This is a pretty good book on C++ Templates. I got into this subject in college and am now in grad school.

This book went FAR beyond what my text books were teaching with complete coding examples. I found it helpful, complete and accurate. Like what else can I say!

This is second Murray/Pappas book I own. I wrote a review of their Visual C++ book. This is also a good book.

I understood that the next project at my company would use C++ Templates so I went to the book store to find a book. There were only two. I spent an hour and bought this one. I'm glad I did. First, the company is now using templates and second, this book had me using them in ONE NIGHT. Can't say any thing better about a book.

When I went ot work and knew some C++ Template material, the others in the department couldn't believe it. I think I made a good impression with my boss.

Anyway - the book is good, complete and well worth your money.

My name is Hi and I work for my uncle programming. I write C++ programs. This was a good book and I bought another Murry and Pappas book that was good.

My uncle wanted me to use template library and this book helped me with understanding. I can now write that code.