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Secrets of the C++ Masters by Jeff Alger Recommended

ISBN: 0 12 049940 1       Publisher: Academic Press       Pages: 388pages + disk       Price: £29-95

Categories:   advanced c++

Reviewed by Francis Glassborow in C Vu 7-4 (May 1995)

The first three chapters could be skipped by most experienced C++ programmers as they are just meant to level the playing field for those who need a little extra re templates and exceptions.

The next five chapters are the most comprehensive development of 'smart pointers' that I have yet come across. This, or something like it should be compulsory reading for all who are going to program in an exception handling environment
The book would be worth buying for the last section alone but the next section of three chapters handling concepts of dispatch, multiple dispatch and factory classes adds jam to it.

The last four chapters constitute a section titles 'Managing Memory.' This section tackles some deep issues including compacting memory (requires moving things around) and scavenging ( basically the heart of garbage collection).

There are many more specialist topics on the use of C++ but this book is an excellent starting point for those who have ambitions to becoming master technicians with C++. It is not appropriate to those who are still trying to understand the merits of using a reference rather than a pointer.