Author: Paul J. & Harvey M. Deitel
Publisher: Prentice Hall, 2009
Pages: 1056
ISBN: 978-0137001309
Rating: 4
Aimed at: Programmers moving to C++
Pros: Comprehensive coverage of modern C+
Cons: Covers the very basic and the very advanced
Reviewed by: Ian Elliot 

This title is one of the Deitel series of books aimed at teaching programmers new languages with an object-oriented design approach. In this case the subject is C++ and it suffers from the standard flaw common to the other books in this series – if you are already a programmer you probably don’t need the very basic low level introduction or comments and if you can’t program you probably don’t need the overhead of having to learn about object-oriented design. This said the dry and slightly academic style of the book seems to suit C++ rather better than other languages that admit a GUI drag-and-drop approach to UI design.

This isn’t a book for the expert but we do eventually reach some more advanced topics – templates, STL and the Boost libraries. Even in this section of the book there are some odd inclusions – bit manipulation and string handling are a bit “low level” compared to some of the other concerns. Also notice that the book isn’t targeted at any particular flavour of C++ although the C++ Express and GNU compilers were used to develop the code. Equally there is nothing on platform specific coding, e.g. there is no discussion of interacting with and operating system and nothing about the MFC or C++ .NET.

There is so much at so many different levels within this book that an instructor could easily pick out sub-sections to make up a custom course to suit almost any eventuality. If you are indeed planning to do this then this is the book’s strength. But if you simply want to be guided through the material it’s a weakness. With this proviso it is a good and fairly encyclopedic coverage of modern C++ coding.

<ASIN:059600298X>

<ASIN:020170353X>