Exceptional C++ Style: 40 New Engineering Puzzles, Programming Problems, and Solutions 1st Edition

by Herb Sutter (Author), John Fuller (Series Editor)

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ISBN-13: 978-0201760422

ISBN-10: 0201760428

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Exceptional C++ Style continues where Exceptional C++ and More Exceptional C++ left off. This book follows in the tradition of the first two: It delivers new material, organized in bite-sized Items and grouped into themed sections. Readers of the first two books will find some familiar section themes, now including new material, such as exception safety, generic programming, and optimization and memory management techniques. The books overlap in structure and theme, not in content. This book continues the strong emphasis on generic programming and on using the C++ standard library effectively, including coverage of important template and generic programming techniques. Sutter's goal for this third and final book in his set is to present case studies that pull together themes from the previous books. This book also covers important points presented at the C++ Standard Committee where corrections to the Standard have been discussed and accepted.

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Herb Sutter may well know the C++ programming language better than anyone else. He's worked with the language for years; he sits on its international standards committee; he works on the Microsoft Visual C++ team--his list of qualifications is astounding. That is, however, only part of the reason you should pay attention to Exceptional C++ Style. A more important reason is that he understands how to teach software developers: To wit, he issues challenges and dares the programmers to figure them out. Sutter grasps the importance of not lecturing smart people, and knows that guided exploration goes a very long way.

To give an example of Sutter's challenges (40 of them, graded by difficulty, appear in this dense book) would take more space than is available here. Know, however, that while some of them deal with obscure parts of C++, most do not, and the majority of the challenges deal with aspects of the language you use all the time. Sutter's approach doesn't consist exclusively of challenges and solutions, either--the author takes time to distill the exercises into design recommendations, making it easy for programmers to remind themselves of what they've learned. --David Wall

Topics covered: How to take a journeyman's skill with C++ and turn it into something more masterly, by exploring the behavior of C++ and its various parts in detail. Coverage deals with inheritance and other aspects of object orientation, exception handling, memory management, and templating.

From the Back Cover

Software "style" is about finding the perfect balance between overhead and functionality... elegance and maintainability... flexibility and excess. In Exceptional C++ Style, legendary C++ guru Herb Sutter presents 40 new programming scenarios designed to analyze not only the what but the why and help you find just the right balance in your software.

Organized around practical problems and solutions, this book offers new insight into crucial C++ details and interrelationships, and new strategies for today's key C++ programming techniques--including generic programming, STL, exception safety, and more. You'll find answers to questions like:

What can you learn about library design from the STL itself?
How do you avoid making templated code needlessly non-generic?
Why shouldn't you specialize function templates? What should you do instead?
How does exception safety go beyond try and catch statements?
Should you use exception specifications, or not?
When and how should you "leak" the private parts of a class?
How do you make classes safer for versioning?
What's the real memory cost of using standard containers?
How can using const really optimize your code?
How does writing inline affect performance?
When does code that looks wrong actually compile and run perfectly, and why should you care?
What's wrong with the design of std::string?

Exceptional C++ Style will help you design, architect, and code with style--and achieve greater robustness and performance in all your C++ software.

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Addison-Wesley Professional; 1st edition (August 2, 2004)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 325 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0201760428
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0201760422
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 3.53 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 9.22 x 7.4 x 0.66 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #760,083 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #295 in C++ Programming Language
- #2,062 in Computer Programming Languages
- #3,493 in Computer Software (Books)

Customer Reviews:
23 ratings

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4 star		9%
3 star		10%
2 star		12%
1 star 0% (0%)		0%

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Jerry

Very good book

Reviewed in the United States on June 4, 2013

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This is a great book to have, and complements his standards book. The issues he addresses here are especially useful for people developing classes that other people will use. Plus you can read the book in any order, so you can go right to the part you are interested in at the time without having to read the entire part before it (Although I recommend reading all of it eventually).

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c.z.

Damaged product

Reviewed in the United States on March 10, 2021

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The book was damaged even though I bought a new one...

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Thing with a hook

ever so slightly less exceptional

Reviewed in the United States on February 21, 2007

I had mixed feelings on this one. On the one hand, this is definitely a good book. You won't find a lot of the material here having filtered out to any other book yet. On the other hand, the actual content itself feels more ephemeral than the previous two installments. Personally, I don't have a problem with that; Sutter's work can be read perfectly well as a way to pick up the general principles of solid C++ engineering from an articulate, reliable expert, you don't need him to be spelling out everyday techniques to get something useful from his writing.

As an example, the items that I found most memorable included his investigation of how compilers failed to adhere to the standard when it comes to template friend function look up, with the surprising result that the normally reliable g++ is the worst offender. Additionally, he demonstrates several ways to call private member functions from outside of a class. I'm certain that fans of the last two books will get a kick out of this stuff, but it's not quite at the same level as his work designing for exception safety.

In addition to the usual question-essay-guideline format, the book has a substantial final section dissecting some failings of publicly-available code, which is where I assume the title of the book comes from. Those with fond memories of Tom Cargill's C++ Programming Style will definitely like this bit.

Despite the fact that the material is arguably slightly thinner than usual, the number of pages is actually up on the previous books. Sutter's writing style has also expanded. However, in a couple of places, the writing could have done with some editing. There are some witty asides and extraneous material that take up just a bit too much space.

Nonetheless, Sutter-nutters will probably not be too disappointed by Exceptional C++ Style. I still really enjoyed this book; reading it was time well spent.

3 people found this helpful

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Michi Henning

Excellent for C++ programmers at all levels

Reviewed in the United States on August 13, 2004

This book is not so much about C++ "style" in the usual sense (that is, how to indent or where to put the curly braces) but rather, about sound coding practices that make your code simpler, better, faster, and more maintainable. What you get is a collection of 40 items that each examine a specific topic, outline the potential problems with a particular approach, and then proceed to show you how things can be improved. Most importantly, each item is strong on the rationale: you are not just told how to do it better, but *why* it is is better to do something in a particular way.

There is something for everyone in this book, from the obscure and astonishing ("How many consecutive '+' characters can appear in a standards-conforming program?"), to the pragmatic ("When should you use inlining?"), to the advanced ("How generic should you make your templates, and why?").

I've been programming in C++ for 16 years now, and I learned quite a lot from reading this book. Yet, you don't have to be a C++ veteran to appreciate the advice that is provided: novice C++ programmers will find the items just as useful as old hands at C++ programming.

The book is well written, in clear and concise style, and never boring. (A number of creative footnotes even produce the occasional laugh.) The material is well organized, presented in groups of topics that relate to each other, and the table of contents and index make it easy to locate a topic for reference. And the bibliography contains things that are actually worth reading, rather than meaningless filler material.

I most appreciated Herb's honesty when dealing with various not-so-great aspects of C++. He doesn't shy back from pointing out when things are bad and simply shouldn't be used (such as exception specifications). The items I enjoyed the most are about the design of std::string, which Herb dissects (or should I say "trashes"?) unmercifully. To me, the book is worth buying just for these items alone because they provide splendid insight into what distinguishes good design from bad design, and how methodical and clear thinking is essential to writing good programs. ("Beware the behemoth of the Winnebago class -- it will haunt you onto the fourth generation...")

In summary, I think every C++ programmer should read this book. Yes, it's *that* good.

19 people found this helpful

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Paul M. Dubuc

Yet More Exceptional C++

Reviewed in the United States on November 11, 2004

This book is a great addition to Herb Sutter's previous two "Exceptional" C++ books. It follows a very similar question and answer format that helps the reader think about a problem before being given the answer and so is more effective in helping you learn than are some other books. It gives very clear and concise answers to each problem with guidelines drawn from each lesson highlighted throughout the text that help you remember the main points.

The only problem now that I have is, with all three of these books on my shelf, it takes longer to figure out where I read something of on a particular topic. The topical sections of each book overlap (E.g., sections covering exception eafety, memory managment and inheritance appear in all three books.) and they are all written at the same level of difficulty overall. The later books do make plenty of references back to the earlier ones as well as some other very good C++ books but this material would be better organized in one volume rather than three. Perhaps they should have been published as three editions of the same book rather than three separate books. That's the only thing I can think of that would have made them more useful. Even so this book, like the other two, is very good exercise for keeping C++ programming skills sharp. Well done!

10 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

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Douglas

This book is very good, giving a condensed summary of good C++ coding ...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 10, 2015

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This book is very good, giving a condensed summary of good C++ coding practice which otherwise would need a lot of reading. Liked particularly the static initialisation issues between modules (files) and the comparison between static and dynamic polymorphism (I wish this had been less terse and to me was the most significant point but also the poorest described). Buy it. Practice it.

Jean Wild

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 26, 2014

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excellent book

Dietsche

Exceptional C++ Style von Herb Sutter

Reviewed in Germany on April 18, 2018

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Es werden 40 Programmier Beispiele besprochen. Zweifelsohne mit einer umfassenden Kompetenz.
Das Buch wurde 2005 veröffentlicht und ist ein Relikt früherer C++ Versionen. Die angesprochenen Exempels sind oft
veraltet und der Autor selbst schreibt, dass man das Buch nicht von der 1. bis zur letzten Seite lesen muss.
Der Erfinder von C++ Bjarne Stroustrup ist aktueller, vielfältiger und in den gegebenen Beispielen detailreicher.

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aidoru

Utile

Reviewed in Italy on May 25, 2015

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Probabilmente tra i libri da leggere se si è programmatori di C++, sebbene lo trovi meno fondamentale di altri come Modern C++ Design di Alexandrescu.

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Mack

A must read for C++ professionals

Reviewed in Canada on April 20, 2017

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As great as his other books

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Exceptional C++ Style: 40 New Engineering Puzzles, Programming Problems, and Solutions 1st Edition

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