ACCU Reviews: Secrets of the Borland C++ Masters

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Secrets of the Borland C++ Masters by Ed Mitchell
Recommended

ISBN: 0-672-30137-7 Publisher: Sams Pages: 730pp+disk Price: £40-95

Categories: borland

Reviewed by Francis Glassborow in C Vu 5-4 (May 1993)

This is much more than a book on C++, in fact it isn't really a book on C++ at all. Which leaves the question as to what it is. Well first off, if you don't have a copy of Borland C++ 3.1 (or 3.0, some of the authors handle items relating to version 2.0) skip the rest of this review because this is definitely a book about using this product to best advantage. I am almost tempted to say that if you do have a copy, skip the rest of this review and go out and buy this book. I promise you that you will not be disappointed. The cost includes two high density 3.5" disks so there aren't any hidden extras.

I am going to break my own rule and provide you a list of chapter headings because I can think of no better way to provide you with some understanding of the coverage of this book. The chapters are: Optimising Your System for Best Performance, Power Features of the IDE and Borland C++, Using Programming Utilities, Version Control Systems, Managing Memory, Using Library Routines, Writing Robust and Reusable Code, ViewPoint Graphics in C++, Graphics Programming in Borland C++, Audio and Sound Support under DOS, Debugging Techniques, Program Optimization and Turbo Profiler, Using Borland C++ with Other Products, Creating Software for the International Marketplace, How to Write a TSR, High-speed Serial Communications, and finally, Templates, Parsing and Math.

The only part of the book that will be comparatively useless to UK members is the appendix 'Sources for Software Tools, Utilities, and Libraries.

As an example of the range of individual chapters chapter 1 covers not only MSDOS but DRDOS, RAM disks, FASTOPEN (including a warning) STACKER etc.

Heavy enough to be a door stop, this book is unlikely to be used as such. Now what about a similar book for MS Visual C++.

Other Authors with the same surname

Mitchell
C++ Object-Oriented Programming by R J Mitchell [Not Recommended] (Reviewed Sep 1993)
Inside the Windows 95 File System by Stan Mitchell (Reviewed Jul 1998)
Internet Connection, The by Smoot Carl-Mitchell & Quartermain (Reviewed Jul 1994)
Object-Oriented Programming with Visual C++ 1.5 by Ed Mitchell & Jack Tackett Jr (Reviewed Mar 1995)
Practical Internetworking with TCP/IP & Unix by Smoot Carl-Mitchell & John Quartermain (Reviewed Jul 1995)

Last Update - 13 May 2001.

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