|  | Authors: Andrew Koenig, Barbara E. Moo
Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional
List Price: $49.99
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Seller: NarLex
Rating:  88 reviews
Sales Rank: 13743
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Paperback
Pages: 352
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 7.3 x 0.7
ISBN: 020170353X
Dewey Decimal Number: 005.133
UPC: 785342703535
EAN: 9780201703535
ASIN: 020170353X
Publication Date: August 24, 2000
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Used Book-Good condition, allow 4-14 business days for delivery
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 6-10 of 88
 C++ For The Thinking Man (Or Woman) June 11, 2009
J. Phillips (New York City, USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I will reiterate what many have said in these reviews: this is without a doubt the best programming tutorial I have ever read.
I'm not sure if I'm qualified to say exactly who it's aimed at and who it's not aimed at, except to say that it's most definitely aimed at me! To explain, here's my situation:
I'm 36 years old and as a kid I dabbled a little in BASIC and even some simple assembly on my C64, but never took any lessons or read any books and as a result didn't really have a clue how to design or write programs and consequently lost interest. At some point I played a little with AMOS on the Amiga but lost interest until a year or so ago when I learned Python with a view to writing some software for my business. It wasn't long before I caught the coding bug and had a huge desire to learn programming "properly" through a study of C. I went through Prata's excellent "C Primer Plus" and gained a good knowledge of pointers and the C way of programming.
So it was at that point that I picked up Accelerated C++. I found that it was perfect for me, having already learned the basics of loops and branching etc. In other words, don't expect this book to baby you. The author speaks to you as if you're an intelligent, mature adult and I found the pace and the prose to be perfect for my level.
I have been reading this book alongside a study of Bruce Eckel's superb "Thinking in C++" and I feel that the two books are the perfect companion for each other. TICPP starts from the ground up and teaches you the technical ins and outs of the C++ language in a lot of detail, which some may find rather tedious, overcomplicated or boring. I have actually found it fascinating. However, I did start to feel like I wasn't getting a practical overview of how to implement programs in C++ which is why I picked up Accelerated C++ to study alongside it. I can't think of a better way to learn C++ programming than reading these two books together.
Accelerated C++ is densely packed with information and reading it is rather like eating a slice a extremely rich chocolate cake. You have to read it carefully and slowly and stop to absorb what you're taking in because it covers ground very quickly. The common thread through the book is a student grading program and while the subject matter bores me to tears it is however an excellent vehicle for building new concepts and adding new features. At times during the reading of this book I had to stop and contemplate just how much I'd learned and to be quite honest it didn't really feel possible to know so much in such a short time. But that's testament to the extremely efficient structure of this book, along with its highly accurate and streamlined writing style. I can't tell you how many programming books I've started and then put down because the author just couldn't string a sentence together without filling my head with uncertainty and ambiguity. In fact I would say that 90% of programming books are terribly written. This is not one of them.
I guess if I have one complaint it would be in relation to the exercises at the end of each chapter - some of them aren't explained very well and I got the feeling that one or two of them were not really possible to complete using the knowledge learned up to that point. For instance, you're asked to write a simplified version of the standard list class and its associated iterator at the end of chapter 11. Upon embarking on this task I found that it was far more complicated than I thought and not really suitable for an exercise question at that stage of the book. Worse still, the chapter before it contains a similar exercise question which has you designing an iterator - far too early! Which leads me to wonder if the authors didn't intend this book to be used alongside the guidance of a teacher. Solutions, or at least clues, would have been nice. However, I won't let this complaint stop me from awarding the maximum 5 stars. I really do feel confident to progress to more advanced programming topics after reading this book.
If you're a complete programming beginner, don't buy it yet. One gets the feeling you are expected to be comfortable with basic programming concepts, even though the book covers things like loops and such at the beginning (I did get the impression this was for the sake of completeness more than anything else). The pace and level of this book make it unsuitable for someone who's never programmed before. To those people, I would suggest learning Python first, using John Zelle's excellent "Python Programming - an Introduction to Computer Science." Then, when you've mastered the basic concepts, maybe try a little C, then dive into this book. Once of the best programming books ever written, I'm sure of it!
If you want to Learn C++! January 19, 2009
Joseph M. Creaney
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I bought this book on a recomendation and it was singly the most useful guide to writing useful C++ programs. This book is not for the fait of heart, I have had to re-read paragraphics to begin to comprhend what was being said. That being said the main difference and advantage of this book is that it teaches the standard libraries as part of the language. Just simply going into strings and vectors a programmer can far more quickly write meaningful software than mucking around with pointers and creating linked lists as other book proscribe. These libraries condence and simpfy programs that would be much longer and out of reach for beginner or intermediate programmers.
If you want to get beyond the basics of C++ and do somthing this is the book for you.
 Fantastic Practical C++ December 12, 2008
Allan Anderson (Texas)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
I bought this book because I was attending a computer science course that the teacher teaches lots of theory but no actual syntax. And he rarely provided any useful examples. I have done quite a bit of programming before, I just wanted to know the right way to program in C++. This book did it for me, it was a great purchase, and my frustration with my programming assignments virtually disappeared. Good clear examples, explains the 'why' of some of the best practices. Not really a reference book, it contains sequential chapters that build on each other. You do not have to have previous c++ experience for this book to be relevant, but I would recommend some programming knowledge.
In my opinion this book is a must own C++ title. December 4, 2008
Lykos (Earth)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
If you want to learn C++ and know another language look no further.
but this is probably not something you'd get as your first c++ text if your just now learning programming.
otherwise for the group its intended i'd say its excellent.
Perfect for self-study July 21, 2008
Daniel Wakefield (Albany, NY, US)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
First, my background: I had abandoned the computer science program at my university in favor of mathematics two years before I gave this book (one of my old texts) a serious look. I came back to it when research projects and Matlab make my interest in programming return.
This book is a little gem--for someone with at least a little programming experience, it moves along with an excellent learning curve, zipping along without leaving the reader confused. This book is not for a total beginner to programming, as it expects you to know how to compile and build programs on your system already. Still, as long as you have at least a tiny bit of programming knowledge, this is the best introduction for teaching yourself C++ that I've seen.
Showing reviews 6-10 of 88
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