Reviews for Programming: Principles and Practice Using C++ (Developer's Library)

1. Programming: Principles and Practice Using C++

   Rated 5 out of 5 stars, April 12th, 2010

   This book is written by an incredibly intelligent man who imparts a stunning array of info to the reader in such a way that leaves you in complete understanding of the subject. very good book, very well written.

2. Excellent book

   Rated 4 out of 5 stars, April 12st, 2010

   This book is an excellent source for anyone who wants to learn programming. It uses C++ as a language but is good to learn many other languages. The book is deep and well written. I would say that it is also useful for people who already know some programming but want to consolidate their knowledge.

3. Very good book for both starters and hobbyists

   Rated 5 out of 5 stars, January 12th, 2010

   The book offers a professional and educational view on the main concepts. Contents is written simply so that it is understandable and easy to understand. For beginners it might take quite long time to go through, and it is always difficult to choose the right book for the beginners, but for a hobbyist it is the book I have looked for long time already. The C++ language is difficult but exciting and I have not given up for many years with it. And recommend not to give up to other followers.

4. A different type of book from the inventor of the language.

   Rated 5 out of 5 stars, October 12th, 2009

   Unlike his previous books, this book is aimed at the beginner and intermediate C++ programmer. Having struggled with some of his books as they are very technical and involve more complex problems, I was pleasantly surprised by the simplicity of this book, which is much more chatty and starts with the basics.
   
   I do however have some reservations about this book. About the only thing I don't like about the book, occurs early on in chapter 2. I don't like the way the author hides the headers etc by including them in a header file of his own - "std_lib_facilities.h". I feel that this treatment makes the student far too dependant, and that it would be better for them to know about these things right at the beginning, especially as the are relatively easy to grasp. What is even worse is that the book does not tell you the contents of this header file. In the appendix, you are however told that you can download the header file from the authors web site.
   
   Now that I have said what I don't like about the book, I must say that besides my complaint above, the book is excellent. There are certain topics that possibly don't appear in most other introductory texts, and certainly are not explained so clearly as they are in this book.
   
   Even in the first part of the book - The Basics, there is good coverage of errors and exception handling, an overview of Classes and much more involved real-world programming examples that you don't typically find in introductory texts.
   
   Part 2 - Input and Output, gives as the title suggests a thorough grounding in Input and Output, as well as providing an introduction to Computer Graphics using the FLTK. This is a class library that comes packaged in Quincy 2005, though can be downloaded separately if you are using another C++ compiler/IDE. This is the only C++ book that I have seen, that uses the FLTK. Other books such as "You can do it" and "You can program in C++" by Francis Glassborow, include graphics environments, but using their own graphics classes.
   
   The remaing parts of the book cover more advanced topics - including data structures and algorithms, including vectors and templates, the STL including the library and many other topics that will only appear in more advanced courses.
   
   So, although the book starts off easy, and has the appearance of being user friendly, it does cover some really difficult stuff.
   
   This is a book that will appeal to a variety of C++ users, from beginner to advanced programmer. A very interesting and useful book to have available on a shelf at home.
   
   
   
   

5. Excellent as always from amazon

   Rated 5 out of 5 stars, October 12th, 2009

   Get excellent service from Amazon as always, only problem is I could not change the deliver to the promoted super saver.