The C++ Programming Language: Special Edition

by Bjarne Stroustrup

Book Overview

The new C++11 standard allows programmers to express ideas more clearly, simply, and directly, and to write faster, more efficient code. Bjarne Stroustrup, the designer and original implementer of... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0201700735
• ISBN13: 9780201700732
• Release Date: February 2000
• Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional
• Length: 1040 Pages
• Weight: 3.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.7" x 7.7" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

Fundamental Book, but should be last read

This book is written in the way creator Bjarne Stroustrup sees his language and how his language should be used. This book is not thin on material for the intermediate to advanced C++ software engineer.One word in warning to potential buyers: You better be sharp with your STL skills before reading this book. Stroustrup writes his implementations around the STL which is not covered from a tutorial style in this book before he introduces it, which tells you that he meant for this book strictly as a reference not as a readers book. This critism is constructive, not disruptive, but I have been programming in standard ANSI/ISO C++ for 9 years, this book is best understood if you read the following first, if not, this book for even an itermediate C++ program cannot be digested to the fullest and you will reading this book fooling yourself of how much knowledge you have attained, when in reality, all that you have accomplished is reading this book so that you can say that you read Stroustrup, which is foolish, so read these first:1) C++ Primer 3rd Edition: Stanley Lippman Addison Wesley Books Strengths: If you are starting out with C++ with no C++ experience, this book covers every facet beginner to advanced topics, such as fundamental classes, class design covering nested class and intense class scoping rules, which Stroustrups book does not cover, there is no reference to nested classes and access privileges with nested classes with Stroustrup's book. The chapters on function templates and another chapter on class templates are the most complete and thorough beyound what you need to know for richness is explained brilliantly and better than scant coverage in Stroustrup's. The C++ Primer is long though, so if you want to learn C++ the right way, skills like this take time and effort, there is no free lunches here, but this is regarded as the best C++ book regardless of level: starter, intermediate, or very advanced master. It also serves a robust reference. This books covers the STL containers well in its own chapter and also two chapter on all the STL algoritms, plus an extended alphabetically ordered repitition in type out of the book and compile form. This book is not for the faint hearted or lazy, if you are ambitious, this book will make you a C++ king. Also get its companion C++ Answer book with all answers to the books exercise questions from author Clovis L. Tondo, also an Addison Wesley title.2) C++ Algorithms 3rd Edition by Robert Sedgewick also Addison Wesley books. Why? You seriouly have to know your date structure skills, linked lists, stacks, trees, queues and its accompanying algoritms, such as: searching and sorting, merging and merge sorting. Stroustrups books assumes you know how these all come together, if you do not believe this, then look at his stark and algorithmically complex data structure examples, once this is read everything will be a piece of cake, believe this, do not fool yourself.3) The C++ Standard Library Tutorial

One of the Best & Most Completed C++ Books Ever!

From my years of being a C++ programmer, this is definitely the one of the best reference books I've ever used. This book cover all the aspects of C++, one of the most complicated programming language, with a nice detail of everything, including STL (Standard Template Library, the C++ new standard library).However, this book is, like all of the previous editions, NOT a language/programming tutorial. To read this book, you will need tons of C++ & OOP knowledge, even if you are an ace C programmer (since C is quite different from C++ in "The Way of Thinking"). Especially, if you are a novice, please read one or two "good" primer book before coming to this one, otherwise you will get lost easily. (Believe me, it's happened to me before when I tried to read the 2nd edition).Moreover. In this edition, the author, Bjarne Stroustrup, added 2 more appendixes on "locales" and "standard library exception safety", which would make this book even more useful and more complete than any previous editions. And would make this become "A Bible" for C++ Programmaing Language.If you are a "serious" C++ programmer (or wannabe), you can't get anything better than this. This is a MUST!

Best there ever will be

I get extremely aggravated by people who read a book like thisand say how terrible it is, how the examples are hard to understand,and how hard the code is to understand, etc etc... Blah blah blah. It's pretty obvious to an experienced programmer that these people clearly are not the target audience of the book. The target audience of this book is programmers who have a couple years of experience programming (at least in C, preferably in C++). Additionally, you must be able to understand some rather complex terminology, and some concepts that go well beyond the basics of just writing simple programs. You must also have a desire to learn the C++ language inside and out, leaving nothing whatsoever unclear about the language. If all you want is the basic syntax of the language and lots of handholding then I cannot imagine why you're even looking at a book by the creator of the language in the first place. That said, this is a truly amazing book. You will never, ever, ever find a more in depth description of the language, it's features and caveats, and how to make the language do what you want it to do and make programming simple in large systems. When you reach a certain point it isn't as simple as "okay let's have a class with some get and set methods here". You must have a thorough understanding of some extremely advanced features, and this book will definitely get you to that point if you put in the time. The way the explanations are worded and the examples that are given are difficult to understand because there's no simple way to explain such advanced concepts. And if you are one of the people that think there _is_ an easy way to explain such concepts in the same amount of detail, I invite you to go find an easy explanation of mathematical Field Theory or Quantum Physics.If you are smart, part of the target audience, and mature enough to handle it, I doubt you will be able to find a better book.And for those who are still convinced that simpler is better, I wonder if you can explain to me *why* overriding a function in a derived class makes all of its overloads in the base class inaccessible.

One of the GREATEST Reference, but NOT a Tutorial.

From my years of C++, this is definitely the one of the best reference books available. This book cover all the aspects of C++, one of the most complicated programming language, with a nice detail of everything, including STL.However, this book is NOT a language/programming tutorial. To read this book, you might need tons of C++ & OOP knowledges, even if you are an ace C programmer. If you are a novice, please read any "good" primer book before coming to this one, or you will get lost easily.If you are a C++ programmer, you can't get anything better than this! This is a MUST, and should be on all C++ programmers' shelf!