A beginners book for C++. Is "A complete guide..." a good one?

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I have studied C, from books like "Practical C programming" by Kochan,almost finishing "A book on C" by Pohl , and the first chapters of "Native C programming, a modern approach" by King.
In a few weeks I want to start with C++. Is the "A complete guide to programming in C++" by Prinz (2001) a good book? I mean is it accurate? will it expose me to good programming habits? There was no review of it in the
http://accu.org/index.php/book_reviews[^]

Posted 17-Feb-11 8:58am

geodoom

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fjdiewornncalwe · Accepted Answer · 2011-02-17T09:04:00

Solution 1

For C++, I always suggest that you read one of the books by Bjarne Stroustrup.
There is a list here .

Posted 17-Feb-11 9:04am

fjdiewornncalwe

Comments

Nish Nishant 17-Feb-11 15:06pm

Voted 5!

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 17-Feb-11 16:23pm

I would agree (my 5 anyway), but this is the only one I read (not counting complete gibberish I saw long time ago).

Unfortunately, I can see two problems with Bjarne Stroustrup.
1) His books are not easy to understand for beginners (however, I don't know OP level);
2) Bjarne looks stubborn to me; he is educating C++ centric view without teaching computer science or development as such, as if his goal to educate strong C++ addicts. I worked with some wonderfully strong Stroustrup-educated C++ masters, but they have huge trouble understanding wider concepts which were actually very important because we developed something requiring compatibility with other words; I have huge problems keeping portability with them. The problem is common, it's not just my experience; I can clearly compare with developers in other languages.

--SA

fjdiewornncalwe 17-Feb-11 19:10pm

I agree with you that he is not an easy read, but he presents C++ as he meant it to be in its purest form. After understanding that, layering on the different mutations and understanding where the language and the mutation begins become second nature. I'm a little partial because I learned C++ that way and of course that is why I like this route.

KingsGambit 18-Feb-11 3:30am

There is a book by Stroustrup titled 'Programming -- Principles and Practice Using C++'which is aimed at beginners. http://www.stroustrup.com/Programming/

Nish Nishant · Accepted Answer · 2011-02-17T09:06:00

Solution 2

Start with one book, and then read maybe a couple more.

See http://stackoverflow.com/questions/388242/the-definitive-c-book-guide-and-list[^]

Posted 17-Feb-11 9:06am

Nish Nishant

Emilio Garavaglia · Accepted Answer · 2011-02-17T09:29:00

Solution 3

I found this on-line book http://www.relisoft.com/book/preface.html[^] very useful.
If focus specifically on the difference between C and C++ (and what you should forget about C to properly use C++).

Posted 17-Feb-11 9:29am

Emilio Garavaglia

Espen Harlinn · Accepted Answer · 2011-02-17T12:43:00

Solution 5

I usually recommend Stanley Lippmans "C++ Primer" as a first book on C++.

I'm pretty sure that you have discovered that while many people are able to write a big tome on one topic or the other - the art of creating something that's actually readable from page 1 and onward isn't mastered by all.

The "C++ Primer" is actually readable, and the authors lead the reader gently from chapter to chapter - you could do far worse :)

Nishant Sivakumar book: C++/CLI in Action[^] is highly recommended if you are thinking about using C++/CLI.

Regards
Espen Harlinn

Posted 17-Feb-11 12:43pm

Espen Harlinn

Updated 19-Feb-11 4:00am

v2

Comments

Abhinav S 19-Feb-11 11:59am

Good advice. 5.

Espen Harlinn 19-Feb-11 12:16pm

Thank you Abhinav!

Hans Dietrich 20-Feb-11 13:17pm

Totally agree about Lippman. Only wish Stroustrup would adopt his style.

Espen Harlinn 20-Feb-11 14:11pm

Thank you Hans!

ShilpiP · Accepted Answer · 2011-02-17T17:52:00

Solution 6

Some online tutorial
Learn CPP->[^]

Cplusplus->[^]

Exporsys ->[^]

Posted 17-Feb-11 17:52pm

ShilpiP

Kurt Degiorgio · Accepted Answer · 2011-02-20T22:26:00

Solution 7

I happen to own both of these books and by all means you should get them since both authors do good job of explaining the "cin's" and "cout's" of the C++ language, but personally as a starting point for any wanna be C++ programmer i would recommend going through the "C++ Primer" by Lipman.

Posted 20-Feb-11 22:26pm

Kurt Degiorgio