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Designing and Coding Reusable C++ by Martin Carroll & Margaret Ellis Recommended

ISBN: 0 20151284 X       Publisher: Addison-Wesley       Pages: 316pp       Price: £?

Categories:   re-usable code     advanced c++

Reviewed by Francis Glassborow in C Vu 7-5 (Jul 1995)

As I typed that sentence I wondered how many were going to accuse me of sexism. If you feel that way, read the sentence again. Margaret Ellis is one of those technical people and Martin Carroll is another one. Yes, it is the same Margaret Ellis that co-authored the ARM, I bet some of you thought she was just doing some of the writing while Bjarne Stroustrup did all the hard technical stuff. If you thought that they would both be justifiably insulted. B.S. writes smooth, highly readable text and M.E. has done compiler development for several companies.

To return to the current book, Martin Carroll's specialism is designing and implementing re-usable C++ libraries, which he has been doing for rather more years than most of you have been writing client level C++. When you have had six months to two years of solid experience coding C++ at applications level you should add this book to your essential reading. When you do, you will start by lowering your opinion of the reusability of your own code. Pretty soon after that you will begin to feel that there are more than a few library designers who should be sat down and required to study this book.

Libraries should be the epitome of reusable code but in fact they are too often a millstone round the necks of both the original designers and their clients..

If you haven't already guessed, this is one of the books I chose to review because I want the book on my reference shelves.

Ellis
Annotated C++ Reference Manual, The by Margaret Ellis & Bjarne Stroustrup [Recommended]  (Reviewed Mar 1991)