Product Description

Sams Teach Yourself C++ in One Hour a Day

 

Jesse Liberty

Siddhartha Rao

Bradley Jones

 

The Sixth Edition of Sams Teach Yourself C++ in 21 Days

More than 250,000 sold!

 

In just one hour a day, you’ll have all the skills you need to begin programming in C++. With this complete tutorial, you’ll quickly master the basics and then move on to more advanced features and concepts:

• Master the fundamentals of C++ and object-oriented programming
• Learn some of the more advanced features of C++
• Learn the Standard Template Library and the containers and algorithms used in most real-world C++ applications
• Learn how to build effective programs in C++ with hands-on exercises
• Get expert tips on implementing C++ in the corporate environment

 

Learn on your own time, at your own pace

• No previous programming experience required
• Learn C++ and object-oriented design, programming, and analysis
• Write fast and powerful C++ programs, compile the source code, and create executable files
• Understand the latest ANSI standard
• Use the Standard Template Library’s algorithms and containers to write feature-rich yet stable C++ applications
• Develop sophisticated programming techniques with functions, arrays, variables, and smart pointers
• Learn to expand your program’s power with inheritance and polymorphism
• Master the features of C++ by learning from programming experts
• Works with all ANSI C++ compilers

 

Jesse Liberty is the author of numerous books on software development, including best-selling titles on C++ and .NET. He is the president of Liberty Associates, Inc., where he provides custom programming, consulting, and training.

 

Siddhartha Rao, Microsoft MVP for Visual C++, has experience in programming driver and application software using C++. He is an expert in the Windows programming arena and works for a German software giant. He also moderates CodeGuru.com, a vibrant online programming community.

 

Bradley Jones, Microsoft MVP for Visual C++, runs a number of software development sites including Developer.com, CodeGuru.com, DevX, VBForums, Gamelan, and other JupiterWeb-owned sites.

 

Category:  Programming

Covers:  C++

User Level:  Beginning–Intermediate

 

Register your book at informit.com/register for access to source code, example files, updates, and corrections as they become available.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #36603 in Books
• Published on: 2008-07-18
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 888 pages

About the Author

Siddhartha Rao is a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional for Visual C++ and a moderator at one of the Internet's most vibrant online development communities, CodeGuru.com. "Sid," as he is popularly known, is an expert in the Windows programming domain, and is experienced in the architecture and development of driver and application software using C++ and other modern programming languages. Currently employed by a German software giant, he specializes in software landscape management and best practices in software development. With the international experience of having lived and worked in three countries behind him, he believes that the travel bug has bit him, and firmly so! Sid speaks many languages that have nothing to do with programming, and when he's not working, you will find him discovering new places on the planet, or shooting--using his Canon, of course!

 

Jesse Liberty is the author of numerous books on software development, including best-selling titles on C++ and .NET. He is the President of Liberty Associates, Inc., where he provides custom programming, consulting, and training.

 

Bradley L. Jones, Microsoft MVP for Visual C++, runs a number of software development sites including Developer.com, CodeGuru.com, DevX, VBForums, Gamelan, and other JupiterWeb-owned sites.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Introduction

This book is designed to help you teach yourself how to program with C++. Just as you can learn to walk one step at a time, you can learn to program in C++ one hour at a time. Each lesson in this book has been designed so that you can read the entire lesson in just an hour a day. It lays emphasis on the practical usage of the language, and helps you get up-to-speed with concepts that are most important in writing C++ applications for real-world usage.

By focusing for just an hour a day at a time, you'll learn about such fundamentals as managing input and output, loops and arrays, object-oriented programming, templates, using the standard template library, and creating C++ applications—all in well-structured and easy-to-follow lessons. Lessons provide sample listings—complete with sample output and an analysis of the code—to illustrate the topics of the day.

To help you become more proficient, each lesson ends with a set of common questions and answers, a quiz, and exercises. You can check your progress by examining the quiz and exercise answers provided in Appendix D, "Answers."

Who Should Read This Book

You don't need any previous experience in programming to learn C++ with this book. This book starts you from the beginning and teaches you both the language and the concepts involved with programming C++. You'll find the numerous examples of syntax and detailed analysis of code an excellent guide as you begin your journey into this rewarding environment. Whether you are just beginning or already have some experience programming, you will find that this book's clear organization makes learning C++ fast and easy.

Organization of This Book

This is a book that appeals as much to a beginner in the language as it does to someone who wishes to understand C++ again, but from a more practical perspective. It is hence divided into five parts:

• Part I, "The Basics," introduces C++, and its syntactical details. This is very useful for absolute beginners who would first like to understand the basics of programming in C++.

• Part II, "Fundamentals of Object-Oriented Programming and C++," introduces the object-oriented features of C++—those that set it apart from its predecessor C. This section lays the foundation for a more practical view of the language and one of its most powerful utilities, the standard template library.

• Part III, "Learning the Standard Template Library (STL)," gives you a close look at how C++ is used in real-life practical applications where quality of your application can be vastly improved by using readily available, standard-compliant constructs.

• Part IV, "More STL," introduces you to algorithms such as sort and other STL constructs that help streamline your application and increase its reliability.

• Part V, "Advanced C++ Concepts," discusses details and features of the programming language that not every application built using it needs to have, yet, knowing them can help in error analysis or in writing better code.

Conventions Used in This Book

Within the lessons, you'll find the following elements that provide additional information:

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Tip - These boxes highlight information that can make your C++ programming more efficient and effective.

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Note - These boxes provide additional information related to material you just read.

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FAQ - What do FAQs do?

Answer: These Frequently Asked Questions provide greater insight into the use of the language and clarify potential areas of confusion.

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Caution - These focus your attention on problems or side effects that can occur in specific situations.

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These boxes provide clear definitions of essential terms.

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DO use the "Do/Don't" boxes to find a quick summary of a fundamental principle in a lesson.

DON'T overlook the useful information offered in these boxes.

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This book uses various typefaces to help you distinguish C++ code from regular English. Actual C++ code is typeset in a special monospace font. Placeholders—words or characters temporarily used to represent the real words or characters you would type in code—are typeset in italic monospace. New or important terms are typeset in italic.

Sample Code for This Book

The code samples in this book are available online for download from the publisher's website.

© Copyright Pearson Education. All rights reserved.

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Customer Reviews

Not perfect, but well worth the price
I'm not a big fan of "Teach yourself X in Y amount of time" books. There, I've said it. Most of these books have their timing wrong anyway, you can't learn to be a world class polo player in 24 hours, you can't build your own ocean liner in 21 days and you can't be a professional hula champion in six easy lessons. And you won't be able to teach yourself C++, at least not enough to be of any use, in an hour a day.

But this book works. Forgetting the one hour a day promise, the book works very well. Learning C++, or just C, or any programming language from scratch is hard. Even harder if you have to learn the concepts of programming, loops, branches, pre and post tests and the whole object oriented thing. This book doesn't make it simple, but it does make the process more logical. And it breaks the process into small steps, most easily learned in an hour.

I'm not a C++ guru. I've used Visual Basic for just about ever and only written a few minor projects in C. I can print my name to the screen in C++, but that's about it. Or at least it was until I started this book. Walking through the first section, aptly titled "The Basics," I was able to get moderately familiar with C++ in such a way that I'll retain the knowledge pretty well. Quite obviously I'll get rusty if I don't use the new skills on a routine basis, but learning them was straight forward and well presented. The tutorials are backed by example code that worked fine in several different compilers and the analysis of what the code is doing is very effective at teaching the concepts as well as the specifics.

I do have a few minor complaints about the book. For one, it almost seems like two books. The first two thirds teaches C++ fundamentals and Object Oriented Programming quite effectively. But then the book almost changes direction and dives into the Standard Template Library. To me it's almost as if the book went a few hundred pages long. I suppose with the trend to produce forest-leveling technical books rather than specific shorter, more to the topic books, that this is to be expected. But I'd rather pay $50 for a 120 page book with only the information I needed than $20 for a thousand page book that scattered that same 120 pages across hundreds of pages of irrelevant, at least to me, material.

On the plus side, this book's 800 or so pages aren't padded with repetitive material or fluff just to meet a page count. The contents may not all be relevant to me, but they are likely relevant to someone else who might buy the book. I tend to see quizzes and exercises in a book like this as extra paper I didn't need, but a student with this book as a course text would find the material appropriate. Even for me the exercises provoked a thinking process not contained in the lesson itself. And in the end, you can't truly learn anything, whether it takes an hour a day or ten, unless you use the knowledge outside of the written example. If you want to learn C++, at your own pace, this is an excellent book to have.

Excellent Book
I've never bought a book from the Sams "Teach Yourself" series. Although I've browsed a few of them in the local bookstore, I've never really found one that worked for me. This book is different.

First off is the all-star writing staff: Siddharta Rao leads the lineup, as a Microsoft MVP (C++) and expert programmer who contributes to community development sites like CodeGuru. Contributing authors Bradley Jones (also a Microsoft MVP) and Jesse Liberty round out the team, contributing their real-world development skill and writing experience to this book.

These writers have put together a solid book that will help a new C++ programmer get off to a stellar running start in the field. As for myself, being an old hand at C++ programming but having neglected my unmanaged C++ development skills for a few years, this book worked well as a wonderful refresher.

The book advertises that it will teach the reader C++ programming in "one hour a day". I think this might be slightly ambitious for many readers, especially those that want to test sample code along the way. But the fact of the matter is once you start a lesson, the authors' writing style will pull you in. The time literally flies by as you work your way through the lessons. Several times I found myself reading 3 or 4 lessons back to back, with no regrets.

A lot of people might judge a C++ book by its discussion of object-oriented concepts: inheritance, polymorphism, etc. The authors discuss these concepts in great detail, devoting several lessons to a thorough discussion of object-oriented concepts.

The authors use a very entertaining writing style, which expresses complex concepts in a very plain-spoken manner. Consider their comparison of passing parameters to a function by value versus passing parameters by reference:

"Passing (a parameter) by value is like giving a museum a photograph of your masterpiece instead of the real thing. If the vandals mark it up, there is no damage done to the original. Passing by reference is like sending your home address to the museum and inviting guests to come over and look at the real thing." (p. 249)

If I could have but one wish, it would be that in the next edition the authors add an introduction to .NET-style managed C++. The authors do, however, provide several lessons explaining the STL (Standard Template Library), a powerful standardized unmanaged code library that provides implementations of data structures, iterators, and many of the other niceties that programmers tend to take for granted in lesser programming languages.

This book is highly entertaining, expertly written, and intelligently organized. "Teach Yourself C++ In One Hour A Day" is an excellent resource for the newbie learning unmanaged C++, or the old hand (like myself) looking for a quick refresher course.

So far very good!
I just finished chapter 4 managing arrays and strings. The book is well written the examples are error free and best of all the book follows a great structure that's something like;

-lesson,
-example code,
-analysis of code,
-at the end of each chapter there's a summary,
-Q/A for the main points of the chapter.
-workshop section with quiz questions and exercises.

The exercises send you out to write your own code from scratch and think outside of the books examples, some of the exercises are labeled BUG BUSTERS which show code snippets with errors for you to solve. Appendix D has quiz answers and possible solutions to the exercises.

So all that gets your mind into the language not just memorizing it, and gives you multiple opportunities to understand each point.

The book includes a free 45day pass to read the book online via "Safari online".

I highly recommend this book!