Customer Reviews:
 A good text for courses where C is not a prerequisite, unsuitable for courses where knowledge of C is assumed July 22, 2008
Charles Ashbacher (Marion, Iowa United States(cashbacher@yahoo.com))
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I have taught C++ for several years at the college level and am always on the lookout for a better textbook, which is the context within which I examined this book. We also have a course in programming with C and most students take the two classes sequentially. Therefore, the coverage of C in the C++ class is on the order of, "Recall that in C when we want to do X we use language feature Y."
This book has too much coverage of C to be used as a text in our C++ class. For example, chapter 11 "Pointer Variable" is a complete description of pointers, what they are and how they are used. In our program, this is covered in C and brushed over in C++. Another example is chapter 12, "Character arrays", which is followed by chapter 13, "The C++ string class." Once again, there is no reason for chapter 12 to be covered in our C++ class.
Other chapters that would be lightly covered or skipped are:
*) Chapter 1, Computers and computing fundamentals
*) Chapter 2, Getting started - program structure, screen output, and comments
*) Chapter 3, Variables and arithmetic output
*) Chapter 4, Basic input/output
*) Chapter 5, Decision making, if, if - else and the switch command
*) Chapter 6, Iteration - loops
*) Chapter 7, Functions
*) Chapter 9, One-dimensional numeric arrays
*) Chapter 10, Multidimensional numeric arrays
However, these points aside, this book would be suitable for a course where knowledge of C is not a prerequisite. If the students lacked that knowledge, then coverage of these areas would be essential. There are many questions and programming projects included in the text. They are placed in two categories: lesson exercises and application exercises. Solutions to the lesson exercises are included.
While I will not be using this book in my C++ class, I can recommend it to anyone who offers C++ as the first programming class in a computer science program.
 Excellent book to learn C++ from December 9, 2005
Gift Card Recipient
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Dr. D'Orazio's C++ Programming textbook is very easy to follow and has many useful examples to learn from. It is very well written and helpful in mastering the C++ language. I would recommend this book for students learning C++ for the first time.
|
