Recommended C++ Book?

spuddy

Looking for a good C++ book. I'm starting from scratch, so something which would give me a good grounding would be appreciated.

Many thanks

dod

Deitel & Deitel. A little pricey but you can't go wrong, good for a beginner & excellent reference once you've got good at it.

DMT

Thinking in C++ by Bruce Eckel. It can be downloaded legally for free from Bruce Eckel's website here.

spuddy

thanks for the quick replies, will definitely look at eckel's books online. Someone mentioned on one of the reviews of the deitel book, that it was unsuitable for use as a reference guide as the layout is poor, would you disagree with this dod?

dod

That's probably a fair comment Spuddy. You probably buy one of the Wrox or O'Reilly books if you were buying a reference book. However, if you are just starting out, the Wrox & O'Reilly books are probably a little intractable. The Deitel & Deitel books are excellent to get into the material, and once you've got into it, you will refer back to it, probably not using it as a reference manual, but as a book that will give you referencable material when you need it.

dod

Sorry, my english is disgraceful, I didn't explain what I wanted to say at all well.

What I meant to say is that it is a good book to buy if your purpose is to learn the discipline in a logical, building-block way.

It is not a good book to buy if your purpose is to buy a C++ reference manual.

God I can make something very simple sound complex.

MrNuked

C++ in a nutshell published by O'Reilly is good...has a full reference section which is extremely useful. It also has a text book section.

jonhate

I wouldn't buy Deitel and Deitel, i have a copy of it at home and i cant tell you how bad i think it is...

Poor layout and Lack of content, I opened it twice and never used it again.
Its good if you wanna just copy code from it and see how to get some basics of C++ up and running no more than that in my opinion.

ppl

Surprised no ones mentioned Stroustrup. He wrote the language... its the definitive C++ reference... "The C++ Programming Language".

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0201889544/qid=1073387382/sr=1-5/ref=sr_1_3_5/202-6490872-0463023

If your looking to learn pure C (on which C++ is based), another landmark book is Kernighan and Ritchie's "The C Programming Language".

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0131103628/qid=1073387451/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_18_1/202-6490872-0463023

There are two excellent books also by a guy called Scott Meyers. These aren't books to teach you C++, they assume you know it already. It teaches you tips on how to program C++ effectivey. The books are entitled "Effective C++: 50 Specific Ways to Improve Your Programs and Designs" and "More Effective C++ ....". I knew C++ pretty well when I read them. At least I thought I did. Learned loads....

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0201924889/qid=1073387602/sr=1-3/ref=sr_1_2_3/202-6490872-0463023


Cheers,

PPL.

mr_angry

I'd suggest going over too oopweb.com . They have an extensive range of free C++ books, including the Eckel one, which is very good, I might add. There are plenty more there too...

tendofan

The Stroustroup book is superb, but I'm not sure it's the best place to start. Deitel & Deitel is better from that point of view. My favourite STL reference book is "The C++ Standard Library" by Nicolai Josuttis.

silverside

'Accelerated C++'

good introduction (supposedly) which uses STL from the start ( a la Java).

http://www.acceleratedcpp.com/

spuddy

thanks for all the advice