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C++ From the Beginning by Jan Skansholm Recommended

ISBN: 0 201 40377 3       Publisher: Addison-Wesley       Pages: 538pp       Price: £21-95

Categories:   beginner's c++

Reviewed by Christer Loefving in C Vu 10-1 (Nov 1997)

There is a short but interesting history of OOP and the process of developing a program is described in detail, without expecting any previous knowledge of programming from the student.

After 185 pages (of a total of 537) the author starts to explain object- oriented program development. I have never before seen topics like pointers and inheritance explained in such a clear and easy to understand way. The code examples are clean and compact. I think the samples have to be short when trying to explain such a difficult language as C++. The book's value is enhanced by the small information windows with syntax and/or explanation of different C++ statements. These Windows are collected in a index of their own at the end of the book. For me, this title will also find use as a handy pocket reference beside the computer.

The newer features of the C++ programming language are well covered. For example, the topic of exceptions is treated in its own chapter. However, I don't like the authors idea of collecting the switch statement, do statement and the conditional operator in a last chapter for the reason that they did not 'fit in anywhere else in the book'. Of course the do statement should have been introduced together with the while and for loops and the conditional operator in the same scope asif-else.

There is a collection of good exercises after most of the chapters, but in spite of that, I think the speed in this book (after the first chapters) will make it hard to read for the real beginner. Maybe making it more suitable for programmers with experience from some other language, requiring a thorough introduction to C++. However, this title is well worth its price.