C++ FAQs (2nd Edition) (Paperback)

by Marshall P. Cline (Author), Greg Lomow (Author), Mike Girou (Author)
Key Phrases: const throw, constructor idiom, improper inheritance, Language Facilities, Big Three, Visual Basic (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

“This is no mere reprint. This is a great book — a definite gem.”


—Cyberdiem.com

Product Description
Brings you the most efficient solutions to more than 400 of the practical programming challenges you face every day in C++ FAQ. Paper. DLC: C++ (Computer programming language).

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Product Details

• Paperback: 624 pages
• Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional; 2 edition (December 21, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0201309831
• ISBN-13: 978-0201309836
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.4 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #46,846 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Decent, but largely redundant., October 22, 2003

By	Alexander L. Belikoff (NY, United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is a 'much expanded' version of the famous on-line C++ FAQ which promises much more detail and material. Since I am trying to constantly prove that I do know C++ well, I picked this book during my C++ book buying craze. I did read this book and while it doesn't make any serious mistakes related to C++, I just don't feel this book is relevant.

First of all, the authors have clearly not given any thought to what their target audience would be. The level of presentation swings wildly from absolute basics (What is a class?) to fairly advanced subjects. Just as I found too many elementary questions in the book, someone less prepared would be surprised by a number of "advanced" topics. While this is understandable for a free on-line document, it doesn't render well in a rather costly book. Same applies to the annoying 'New!' labels marking new or updated topics. Again, this makes sense in a frequently changing on-line document, but it looks ridiculous in a printed book.

The C++ design and coding style presented feels fairly solid and in that sense I can recommend this book to anyone without fearing that it would teach him something objectionable. The authors do their best to stress the importance of interpretation of a base class as a contract and this is a good thing. However, there are still some questionable statements that I don't agree with:

- In 9.02 the authors suggest using exceptions for error handling - all error handling. Whether it is a good thing or not is still a hotly debated topic and I would suggest to at least present the disadvantages of such an approach and alternative methods.

- The authors routinely check the new operator result for NULL, which not only doesn't make much sense (per ANSI C++, new() doesn't return NULL if it cannot create an object) but also teaches a fairly bad technique.

Now, imagine my surprise when, while reading a book on C++ (presumably C++ language), I ended up with a chapter on COM and then another one on CORBA. No matter how related this material may feel, it is still not C++-specific. This sudden addition feels like book padding and that aforementioned 'additional material' that was supposed to sway the users of the free version to purchase the printed book. Well, it seems to have had a completely opposite effect upon me.

I fully understand the authors' desire to be rewarded for their creation (that is, the on-line C++ FAQ). However, this is not an excuse to produce a book which is essentially a rehashed version of the free material diluted with barely relevant topics. Bottom line: read the free on-line version and spend your money either on Stroustrup's "The C++ programming Language" (if you are a novice) or on Myers's "Effective C++" dilogy.

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent concise reference., April 19, 1999

By A Customer

This is the first book I pick up when I need an answer.

The entire book is a series of FAQs, organized extremely well. Each topic has its own chapter. Within a chapter, the questions progress from general to specific, often in the same order that they pop into my mind. Each question is followed by a cut-to-the-chase 1-sentence answer, followed by a more detailed explanation. Finding your question in the book is facilitated by a table of contents that lists each FAQ, and a detailed index.

I also like the editorializing. ("Arrays are evil.") One reason I find C++ baffling is that there are so many ways to do something. The authors pick a way and tell you why it is better than the alternatives. That's information I can use.

As a bonus, there's a chapter on understanding management's perspective. For example, when you're trying to convince management to adopt the object-oriented paradigm, "Show why it's relevant... don't use the 'it will keep the developers happy' approach ... most managers think that they are the people who need to be kept happy ...".

Incidentally, when I find the time, I plan to systematically read the book start to finish, just to fill in gaps in my knowledge. It is entertaining enough that I'm actually looking forward to it.

27 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Questions, questions? Answers, answers., February 5, 2003

By	Bowen Simmons (Sunnyvale, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I always like to start any review of a technical book with the table of contents, and see no reason to break with that practice here:

I Preliminaries

Introduction - Basic C++ Syntax and Semantics - Understanding the Management Perspective- The Architectural Perspective

II Object-Oriented Design

Object-Oriented Fundamentals - Specification of Observable Behavior - Proper Inheritance - Detecting and Correcting Improper Inheritance - Error Handling Strategies - Testing Strategies

III Language Facilities

References ('&' type) - New and Delete - Inline Functions - Const Correctness - Namespaces - Using Static - Derived Classes - Access Control - Friend Classes and Friend Functions - Constructors and Destructors -Virtual Functions - Initialization Lists - Operator Overloading - Assignment Operators - Templates - Exception Tactics - Types and RTTI - Containers

IV Topics

Mixing and Overloading with Inheritance - The Big Three (destructors, copy constructors, assignment operators) - Using Objects to Prevent Memory Leaks - Wild Pointers and Other Devilish Errors - High-Performance Software - COM and Active X - Transitioning to CORBA - C Language Considerations - Private and Protected Inheritance - Pointers to Member Functions - The Transition to OO and C++

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I don't think there are any great C++ books. A great book would eliminate the need for others, which none that I've seen do. Even if not great, this is a good book, and worth reviewing. The book attempts to be two things: first, a programming style guide, and second, a nuts-and-bolts C++ reference book. (Incidentally, the cover is somewhat misleading: it also trumpets coverage of ActiveX, CORBA, and COM, but the material on them here is very thin - if you need to understand them, look elsewhere).

As a programming style guide, it is rather a mixed bag. Its main weakness is a tendency towards salesmanship - that is, the authors are trying to sell you something and are therefore quite aggressive in discussing the merits of their wares and tend to be silent when discussing the weaknesses of them. A particular problem I could point out is the use of C++ in DLLs. If you follow the style guide in this book, and try to put your code into DLL's, you will find that you have some very serious versioning problems, problems the advice in this book was instrumental in creating but useless in alleviating. This doesn't mean that the advice isn't generally good, but there are issues here that the authors are not as frank as they should be in discussing. (I don't know why propaganda of this sort is so common in C++ books, but it is. I've never seen one without it.)

Whatever it may be as a style guide, as a nuts and bolts problem solving book this is really very good. C++ is a large language - it is by far the largest, most complex language ever to find wide use, and there it contains many pitfalls. This book's great strength is in identifying many of these problem areas, and providing solutions to them. The discussion of object construction, copying, and destruction, alone, for example would make this book worth owning. The coverage is not, however, complete. Reader knowledge of language basics is assumed, and some advanced topics, such as multiple inheritance, are not covered. Because of this, you will not find this a good book for learning C++, nor should it be the only C++ book you own.

That said, of all the C++ books I own, this is the one that most often contained the easiest to find, clearest, and best answer to the problems that I actually had when using (as opposed to learning) the language. The answers were generally easiest to find because of the extensive table of contents (it averages about one entry per page) and very complete index. In addition to being easy to find, the answers were also clearly written. There is a lot of sample code in this book, and it is generally very good code for teaching its points. The authors also clearly understand their stuff, and I did not find any of the dreadful this-is-too-technical-for-the-reader hand-waving that so often mars computer industry books. Finally, in addition to being clearly written, the answers were also usually the most complete and thorough I found among the C++ books I own - the problems the book addressed, it addressed very well.

In summary, until and unless that great C++ book is ever written - and I'm not holding my breath - this is a book that almost any C++ developer would do well to have, limits and all.