The C++ Programming Language: Special Edition (3rd Edition)

Stroustup created C++, the first of the commercial OO languages, and shepherded it through many incarnations. You can certainly count on him to deliver what so many people want: the brain dump of the creator. In this, the book succeeds admirably.

I find many problems in using this book, however. Every fact about the language, at the level of the most advanced user, is spelled out here. It's just the organization of them that causes me problems - more a stream-of-consciousness style than either a reference or a tutorial. When organization doesn't work for me, I throw myself on the mercies of the index, hoping that associative lookup will succeed where linear narration failed. I found myself boggled there, too, caught between too many irrelevancies and too few high-grade hits, and trying to figure out what page the current indent level started on. An index is an associative structure, a little like a psychologist's word association test. If this is the outcome of some test, my diagnosis is "extra-terrestrial."

So, standing here, I'm caught between two poles. It's not a tutorial or handbook, like Deitel, but not a fully rigorous and impenetrable standard, like the ISO spec. Maybe it's the perfect answer. My only regret is that I never heard the question.

//wiredweird

This book is not very simple, so I don't recomend it to the beginners.
But for advanced programmers for c++ this is must-have book.

I've used this book as a C++ reference for years but recently, spending two hours a day on the subway, I finally read the entire book from cover to cover. No programming language book is going to be a page-turner but I found Stroustrup's writing to be very readable.

Stroustrup explains each language feature in detail with all of its variations and nuances. The book not only explains how to use C++ features but when you would use them and why they are implemented as they are.

C++ is a complex language, supporting several approaches to programming. Stoustrup provides a good introduction to these different programming styles and shows in detail how they are implemented using C++. Reading this book in its entirety has directly improved my programming.

The C++ Programming Language may be a bit overwhelming for someone new to C++. For newbies, I would recommend starting with Koenig and Moo's Accelerated C++ but after that I recommend that every serious C++ programmer read Stroustrup's The C++ Programming Language. It is possibly the best C++ book on the market.

This is definitely an excellent C++ reference book, but in addition it is worth reading straight through either to learn the language or to further familiarize yourself with some of the nuanced of it. If you're interested in or regularly use C++ and don't have this book, it's definitely worth buying.

How would I say this. You are not a real christian untill you've read the Bible. Yeah, you have to read this book to know what the creator had in mind for the language.

If this is your first C++ book, take heart. Read Chapters 1 and 2 clearly and get more familiar with the language by reading more introductory stuff like Koenig's Accelerated C++ or implementation specific guides like Templeman's Visual C++ .NET step by step. Get a grip of the language and the re-read the entire book.

You will now have a better capacity to make sense of the details presented in this book. Howvere like the Bible, you will have to read many suplementary texts to become a guru and Stroustrups book will remain a closer reference manual as your expertise improves.

Great book. Read like it should be read, THE reference manual for the best language available.