Re: [LUG] C++ book

[Simon Waters <Simon.Waters at wretched.demon.co.uk>]

Aaron Trevena wrote:
> 
> The Waite group book on c++ is very good - very big chunky book with
> knights and stuff on the cover. It is handy both as a reference and as
> tutorial. I find it very useful as opposed to Bjarne Stroustrop's C++ book
> which is just plain scary.

I have a copy of the scary one, you are welcome to borrow if passing
Exeter way.

Bought for a project that never happened 8-(

Various people have commented to me that it is very heavy going, but
when I compared books at Megabyte in Exeter to the other C++ book, it
didn't seem that bad. Certainly seemed to be full of advice on the why's
and wherefore's of the language, and the best approaches to particular
tasks - as I already knew VB and Java and wanted this type of
background.

Much better coverage of the standard template library than most. I also
hit some slight difference between GNU implementation and the book - I
never did figure out which was "correct" (These related to the standard
template libraries sections on system limits, largest int, smallest
real, that kind of stuff, I could only get a C style solution working). 

Although the project was given to another company whilst I was only half
way through the standard template library stuff (I'm not sure your meant
just to read right through that section anyway - just skim it to get the
gist and return when needed).

I did use some simple C++ tutorials from the Internet to get some small
examples up and running (I can send references), revising my limited C
and learning the syntax of C++.

Some of the Bjarne exercises are a tad heavy, and perhaps betray his
experience in writing compilers (I.E. Some of the 'add this to the
calculator program' are down as a couple of hours - maybe if your a
professional compiler writer, or experienced C programmer), some
examples referring to language features I also found tough, I suspect
too little background in C and not using the book with experienced
programmers or tutors around was the issue here.

Back on topic 8-), I was using Publishers Edition of RedHat 6.1, and
found it a requirement to download the latest GCC (There was a major
rewrite of GCC recently, that I hadn't paid attention to as I wasn't
programming, just building code from source). Which for better or worse
I built from source (Mostly to make sure I had it available for the
exercises where they ask you to look at how your copy of the STL is
implemented).

$gcc -v
Reading specs from /usr/local/lib/gcc-lib/i686-pc-linux-gnu/2.95.2/specs
gcc version 2.95.2 19991024 (release)  

	Simon


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