Accelerated C++: Practical Programming by Example (C++ In-Depth Series)

Can't recommend this book enough. Misses newer C++11 stuff like smart pointers due to its age, but teaches underpinnings of the whole language and standard library which is still just as relevant today. One of the chapters actually implements what I would describe as quite similar to smart pointers, from scratch.Crucially, it doesn't assume you're an idiot. Coming from a Java and C background, I therefore found this book didn't hold my hand too much but at the same time was quite comprehensive.Some books will start from scratch as if you've never programmed in your life. If you have previous programming experience, this is the C++ book for you.

For 50p this book arrived ahead of schedule and in like new condition.Not read it yet, but for 50p it's got to be one of my better investments. 😁

This book is well written, reasonably comprehensive and is very fast-paced. It's approach is to get the reader coding immediately and introduce principles through refinement of existing working code examples. This book will be most use to existing OO programmers that want a quick introduction to the syntax and features of C++. I find myself re-reading chapters to help improve my understanding - this is fine as C++ is not (certainly in my experience) a language that you can think in naturally. I would not recommend this book to non-programmers, some programming experience is necessary from the outset.

A well organised and straight forward introduction for the experienced programmer, definitely not for beginners. Well worth having on the shelf. I only wish there was a part II to guide us through C++11x and C++14x

This book was recommended to me when I had to learn C++, but I did not find it all that useful. To me, Rao's book "Teach yourself C++ in one hour a day" was more successful. Maybe it is a matter of how one learns best - I don't know! Or maybe it is a matter of what one is used to (Fortran and R for me) - I still don't know! What I can usefully add (maybe) is that this book sometimes discusses concepts before they are adequately defined, which is difficult for me (although it might not be for everyone).

This is a great book for C++ novices (including me) it covers a range of topics which would be relevant for solving most problems; covering, explaining and presenting everything in an comprehensive way. Also it has suggestions for further C++ subjects and generally helps understanding. However, I had some issues with distinguishing where code blocks were supposed to go but upon a second read it made sense and usually this sort of thing depends on the implementation used -I feel like Visual Basic 2013 is the smoothest out of what I've tried.

Amongst other things I'm a professional trainer, and I've been teaching technical subjects on and off for the last 24 years. I bought this book about a year ago because I'd been asked to provide C++ training and although I'd been teaching in C on and off I'd never delivered a C++ course.I prefer shorter books that stick to the subject, this book does that at 300 pages. It excels at introducing the simple concepts at the start however it's a slave to its examples. This gives the book some problems as it attacks the more complex aspects of C++ as - although one can understand what is being taught, the slavish manner in which new concepts are introduced into the book's 'student grades' example leaves one floundering somewhat with respect to the 'framing' of the newly introduced concepts.People learn most effectively when knowledge is 'framed' meaning its related to some (hopefully) more familiar concept. Clearly the authors understand this principle, and the 'student grades' program is meant to serve this purpose, however the book fails to really get the reader to understand how and where the knowledge provided fits into the spectrum of C++ knowledge rather than just the 'student grades' program.The exercises are excellent but aside from the first few on each chapter I would judge that they are too difficult for 'normal' learners. The authors' attempt to introduce aspects of programming by forcing the reader to code up solutions that would be easy if you'd read on a couple of chapters. This is an approach often taken by academic's - the idea is that one appreciates the knowledge gained by understanding how difficult it would be if you didn't know it. To someone who wants 'accelerated learning' as the title of the book promises, this is soul destroying and a waste of time. The result is that one ends up skipping examples because you know they'll be teaching you how to do it properly in a couple of chapters.If you really wanted to start from scratch and learn C++ you would have no idea on how to compile the examples in this book, let alone understand; what a compiler is, the phases of compilation, the pre-processor, the link-edit phase libraries and dynamic linking. These are concepts that I introduce in 'chapter one' of my courses, before the first break, to build confidence in what the delegates are about to learn.This book has other glaring omissions, namely the C++, Standard Template Library. Although the features of the STL are taught in the book, they aren't really identified in a manner that allows the reader to gain perspective and confidence in their use.Probably the most inexcusable chapter in the book is chapter 8, 'Writing generic functions'. After much consideration I believe that the book seems to have little idea of how to teach one of the most important concepts in C++ which itself is essential to fully appreciate the power of the STL. The reader is left floundering at the end of this chapter wondering what it was all about. If taught properly template classes and functions is a fairly simple topic which is easy to understand and allows the learner to get to grips with what the STL is doing for them. This book just 'drops the ball' so badly that the learners confidence is destroyed, rather than built up.If you already know how to program, you already know a bit of C, you know how to compile, you have other reference material, you aren't discouraged by chapter 8, you could probably learn C++ quite quickly from this book, however if you want to learn C++ rapidly from scratch I doubt very much that you would match the claim on the book that '..student's learned how to write substantial programs on their first day in the classroom..' because the book just assumes you have knowledge that you probably don't have.

I bought this for my brother to learn C++ after he had watched several YouTube videos on the language. He is thoroughly enjoying the experience and I believe that learning by example is the best method for applied knowledge such a programming. He tells me the book is easily followed and well structured. Very well geared towards beginning programmers.