The Definitive C++ Book Guide and List

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

by helwr • 15 years ago

80 20 15 years ago

d0m2• 15 years ago

You know what is sad? I've read them all before I knew there were other programming languages! I say it's sad because the time spent reading that - thinking that would make me a better programmer - was wasted as I could have learned higher level languages. Still, from time to time in my life, when I need to get a C+ job done, it helps to be able to understand it. Also, it helps in interview questions where they seem to pick question from effective or exceptional ;)

raz0r2• 15 years ago

You say funny things. Not everything can be built with high-level languages. Some people work on operating systems, others on database systems, etc. So stop this nonsense, I have some breaking news for you: not everyone writes web applications these days.

tomjen32• 15 years ago

Couchdb is written in Erlang, which also powers a 3d software program. Java with a jit compiler is as fast as C++ for digital signal processing.

And ocaml is considered faster than C++, Stalin can compile Scheme to faster than c.

d0m2• 15 years ago

"You say funny things", "Stop this nonsense", "some breaking news for you" -> Not needed to prove your point.

I never said that C++ was not useful, neither that it was not a good programming language or not in use today. In fact, of all the offers I receive, half of them are in C++. And I don't think everyone writes web applications.

I said that I was wrong thinking that I would become a better programming by reading those books. I would become a more technical C++ programmer, but not a better programmer. By learning other languages, helping other communities and understanding their philosophies, I get a different perspective on C++. It's like trying to understand the humanity by sticking in your city instead of traveling around the world.

So, I understand now why Meyers suggest using Fonctor and High-Level STL functions instead of for-loops. I understand that Andrei Alexandrescu, in Modern C++ Design, based its TMP on Lisp cons principles. I understand the advantage - and disadvantage - of compiling.

Do you use raz0r (4 karma for 500+ days?!) when you are frustrated and want to bash on something?

blub2• 15 years ago

i.e: "I now prefer higher level languages, but my hard-gained C++ knowledge is still useful sometimes".

saw-lau2• 15 years ago

Somehow I got hold of a link to Yossi Kreinin's 'Frequently Questioned Answers' (http://yosefk.com/c++fqa/index.html) - probably from HN, actually; so I felt duty-bound to add it to SO's C++ Tag Info (http://stackoverflow.com/tags/c%2b%2b/info; awaiting moderation).

(From a former C++ lover who is now much more comfortable programming in C again...)

blub2• 15 years ago

I have read this FQA when it first appeared and I didn't find anything noteworthy in it (except the author's bias and visceral hate).

This is empirical (HN, reddit), but I've noticed that people who recommend the FQA usually have a poor understanding of C++.

saw-lau2• 15 years ago

While I don't claim to be an expert (I haven't used C++ for the last six or so years, and I only have about five or six years experience in using it), I'd like to think I have better than a 'poor' understanding of it.

Interestingly for me, when I read the FQA last week for the first time, I didn't find anything noteworthy in it either. It basically resonated with me as more of a series of well-argued (IMHO) 'things that I always knew but had never really attempted to explain' statements.

The author is, of course, biased towards not promoting the language; and I guess I've gone down that road, too.

microtonal• 15 years ago

I have read comp.lang.c++(.moderated) for years, and I have never seen a language where the most experienced programmers have to read up the standard to answer a question. Many points raised in the FQA are valid (although written in an inflammatory manner), the main point being that C++ is full of corner cases, traps, and historical artifacts.

IMO C++ is a language that we just have to live with. It's ugly, but there's lots of legacy software written in C++, and the only viable option if you need to optimize a lot while still keeping proper typing.

haberman• 15 years ago

I like C++, but one valuable thing I took from FQA was a concrete example of how absurdly difficult C++ is to parse. Everyone "knows" how hard it is to parse C++, but this specific example was really eye-opening to me: it's a program which can have two completely different parse trees depending on the result of a sizeof() expression!

http://yosefk.com/c++fqa/web-vs-c++.html#misfeature-3

TillE• 15 years ago

If you're basically familiar with C++ and want one good book, Effective C++ is the way to go. Quite simply, it teaches you how (and why) to write good, idiomatic C++ code, one rule at a time.

mx23232• 15 years ago

completely agree.

read it when you start c++, then read it 6 months later. it will feel like you are reading a completely different book :)

monk_the_dog• 15 years ago

When I was learning C++ I subscribed to a great magazine called the "C++ Report". I first read about expression templates and template meta-programming in that magazine (Todd Veldhuizen's articles on Blitz). I blew my mind that people could use templates that way. Too bad it took many years to get my hands on a compiler that could actually handle templates well enough to use those techniques :-)

I'm not necessarily recommending reading those articles today - they are pretty dated. Still, it was wonderful to read about the techniques as they developed.

mx23232• 15 years ago

once you've read these books, take a look at altdevblogaday.org

they have daily blog posts from excellent game developers.

although i'm not a c++ game developer, i do use c++ and i take a lot of inspiration from the techniques that they talk about on that site.

The Definitive C++ Book Guide and List

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