The Waite Group's Object-Oriented Programming in C++ [Paperback]

Robert Lafore (Author), Waite Group (Corporate Author)

Book Description

Series: The Waite Group | Publication Date: December 1998

A comprehensive solution for teaching object-oriented programming using the features of ANSI/ISO C++. It covers the basic concepts of object-oriented programming, why they exist and how to make them work effectively. The book covers object-oriented programming through task-oriented examples and figures to conceptualize the techniques and approaches used. It also contains questions and exercises to reinforce the concepts students have learned.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

This tutorial presents the sophisticated new features of the most current ANSI/ISO C++ standard as they apply to object-oriented programming. Learn the concepts of object-oriented programming, why they exist, and how to utilize them to create sophisticated and efficient object-oriented applications. This book expects you to be familiar with basic programming concepts. It is no longer enough to understand the syntax and features of the language. You must also be familiar with how these features are put to use. Get up to speed quick on the new concepts of object-oriented design patterns, CRC modeling, and the new Universal Modeling Language (UML), which provides a systematic way to diagram the relationship between classes. Object-oriented programming is presented through the use of practical task-oriented examples and figures that help conceptualize and illustrate techniques and approaches, and questions and exercises to reinforce learning concepts.

Product Details

• Paperback: 850 pages
• Publisher: Pearson Sams Publishing; 3rd edition (December 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 157169160X
• ISBN-13: 978-1571691606
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.3 x 2.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (42 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,342,753 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Excellent information, but plenty of errors, May 23, 2000

By 

Matthew Clower (Gilroy, Ca) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Waite Group's Object-Oriented Programming in C++ (Paperback)

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.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A good book but author gets a little carried away sometimes, October 20, 1997

By 

[e-mail] (Pueblo, CO) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Object-Oriented Programming in C++/Book and Disk (The Waite Group) (Paperback)

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.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars This is Windows C++, not ANSI C++., January 24, 2001

By 

Donovan Rebbechi (Wynnewood, PA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Waite Group's Object-Oriented Programming in C++ (Paperback)

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)