Excellent concise reference.

The entire book is a series of FAQs, organized extremely well. Each topic has its own chapter. Within a chapter, the questions progress from general to specific, often in the same order that they pop into my mind. Each question is followed by a cut-to-the-chase 1-sentence answer, followed by a more detailed explanation. Finding your question in the book is facilitated by a table of contents that lists each FAQ, and a detailed index.

I also like the editorializing. ("Arrays are evil.") One reason I find C++ baffling is that there are so many ways to do something. The authors pick a way and tell you why it is better than the alternatives. That's information I can use.

As a bonus, there's a chapter on understanding management's perspective. For example, when you're trying to convince management to adopt the object-oriented paradigm, "Show why it's relevant... don't use the 'it will keep the developers happy' approach ... most managers think that they are the people who need to be kept happy ...".

Incidentally, when I find the time, I plan to systematically read the book start to finish, just to fill in gaps in my knowledge. It is entertaining enough that I'm actually looking forward to it.

A great reference

     I find this book to be a great reference. Anytime I want the answer to an obscure question I look it up in my C++ FAQ's book. Not only does it have the answer I am looking for, but also a lot of advice and cross references to other related questions, answers, and advice. You will find in depth discussions of strange language issues such as placement new, calling destructers without deleting an object, having a default implementation for a pure virtual function, making a function pointer that points to a non-static class member function, and all kinds of other advanced topics not covered in your average C++ book. I am willing to bet most experienced C++ programmers don't know about many of these issues. Of course, all the basics are covered as well. You can learn just about everything about C++ by reading this book from cover to cover.