Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: The Design and Evolution of C++ by Bjarne Stroustrup ISBN: 0201543303 Publisher: Addison-Wesley Pub Co Pub. Date: 29 March, 1994 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $44.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.69
Rating: 5
Summary: Entry point to becoming an educated C++ programmer!
Comment: My C++ education started around the time when there were no real C++ compilers, a broken translator from AT&T was all there was. Seemingly unending bugs in that translator, grossly incomplete implementation, and some fellow graduate students working in the areas of programming languages gave me enough knowledge to realize the limitations of C++. And, ah, I also read Bjarne Stroustrup's occasional postings to comp.lang.c++ Internet news group, as a counterbalance to the rest of my experiences. Before I could become a "card carrying member of the C++ haters group", this book arrived. I learned to appreciate C++ inspite of it being what it is: C++ ("not even a B!").
That's what this book does - explain the various decisions that have been made in the design of the languge, as it evolved at Bell Labs in the mid eighties and early nineties. Side by side, it also records the relevant history of the development of the language ("evolution").
If you are a new C++ programmer, or even one who uses C++ as an "improved C" (whatever that is supposed to mean!), then you probably won't find much to appreciate in this. On the other hand if you have struggled with the more arcane features of it, or wondered about the features from your favorite language missing in C++, this book will most likely explain the reasons behind those. By understanding why a feature is supported or not supported should help you understand the paradigm of programming in C++ and thus help you write better C++ programs.
Judging from this book (and NOT from the First Edition of his book on C++ language!), Stroustrup is an outstanding writer. The book is well edited - detailed where tolerable; interesting, precise and to the point where necessary, trimmed where it could have been boring. All in all, a very readable and educating book.
Sometime ago, I had to teach a course in Software Engineering to some Computer Science graduate students. I made this a "strongly suggested reading" for the course.
In addtion to desisgn and evolution of C++, you also get an insight into Stroustrup's overall philosophy in Programming Languages, Computer Science, and in general about Software, thorugh interspersed opinions - which are variously funny, witty, humorous, and always insightful. ("... overloading the white space [to make F=MA semantically equivalent to F=M*A] is beyond the scope of this book ...", "... students showed their usual creativity in avoiding the paper work [to get the software] ..."!).
All in all, this is a nice book that I read the first time in 1994. Since then have read it two more times so far, and frequently recommend to other competent C++ programmers. (And, in spite of Java, C#, Perl, Ruby and what not, C++ has continued to be my first language in programming!)
Rating: 5
Summary: Key Insight
Comment: I am a CS student and this is the one C++ book I always carry with me. I find it useful as an explanation to "how and why" C++ is the way it is, and also useful as a reference. The 34 page index, which is about 1/12th of the book, is exhaustive. Almost any aspect of the C++ language is listed along with a description of how it works and why.
This book offers key insight into the class layout in memory, vtables, multiple inheritance and the type-checking system.
Bjarne talks about what he wanted to add, but was not allowed to. He also explains how C++ was written mostly in C++, which I found weird and amusing.
If you're looking for info on the STL, this book has none; this is strictly C++ language related. If you're interested in computer language development or compiler writing, this book would be wonderful.
Lastly, if you plan on teaching C++, you should really read this book so you can understand the language well enough to explain it.
Rating: 5
Summary: the story behind C++
Comment: This book is very interesting in that it doesn't tell you how to program in C++ but rather highlights why C++ is the way it is today. It starts with the very roots, an extension to the C language ('C with classes'') Bjarne devised back in 1979, because he faced a software engineering problem at the time where all currently available tools seemed inappropriate. This highly real world oriented design attitude was kept throughout the evolution of C++ - Bjarne specifically didn't want to produce an 'academic' language. This view and the absolute necessity for C compatibility and efficiency explain lots, if not all, of C++s more ugly syntactic and semantic constructs. While the book has chapters dealing with very specific parts of the language, I found the philosophical chapters the most interesting. These explain the author's personal views on programming and design in general and consequently why certain things were accepted or rejected into C++. Bjarne stresses the point that C++ was designed from the beginning to be a 'multiple paradigm' language. Object oriented programming was never meant to be, and is not, the only valid - holy grail - style of programming, that many make it out to be. It's quite frustrating to see features devised ten years ago still not properly supported by the current crop of compilers, templates for example (export anyone?).
The book is not for the novice programmer, but for the experienced C++ user who wants to know the whys behind the language. While a novice might be interested in that information too, it is not an advisable lecture for those readers, since they might easily get confused with the source code examples showing directions in which C++ did not evolve.
To quote one of the design goals: 'C++ is a general-purpose language designed to make programming more enjoyable for the serious programmer' - I think it succeeded.
 |
Title: The Annotated C++ Reference Manual by Margaret A. Ellis, Bjarne Stroustrup ISBN: 0201514591 Publisher: Addison-Wesley Pub Co Pub. Date: 1990 List Price(USD): $59.95 |
 |
Title: The C++ Programming Language (Special 3rd Edition) by Bjarne Stroustrup ISBN: 0201700735 Publisher: Addison-Wesley Pub Co Pub. Date: 15 February, 2000 List Price(USD): $64.99 |
 |
Title: Effective C++: 50 Specific Ways to Improve Your Programs and Design (2nd Edition) by Scott Meyers ISBN: 0201924889 Publisher: Addison-Wesley Pub Co Pub. Date: 1997 List Price(USD): $37.95 |
 |
Title: Effective STL: 50 Specific Ways to Improve Your Use of the Standard Template Library by Scott Meyers ISBN: 0201749629 Publisher: Addison-Wesley Pub Co Pub. Date: 06 June, 2001 List Price(USD): $39.99 |
 |
Title: The C++ Standard Library: A Tutorial and Reference by Nicolai M. Josuttis ISBN: 0201379260 Publisher: Addison-Wesley Pub Co Pub. Date: 12 August, 1999 List Price(USD): $59.99 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
