The *best* C++ text there is.

Lafore could explain quantum physics to an infant

I've been a software engineer for roughly two years now. I was fortunate to have learned C++ and Data Structures by books written by Lafore. In my time in the field, I've noticed that I have a much stronger understanding of C++ and Data Structures than many of my senior programmers. It appears that the books they learned from in college were so esoteric and academic (Introduction to Algorithms (MIT Electrical Engineering and Computer Science))that they actually fear opening the book, let alone creating binary trees, heaps and weighted graphs. Of course they are also C spaghetti programmers and they have no problem with global variables.

When I was in college the required C++ text was Deitel and Deitel's C++ How to Program. The book was just plain boring to me, fell apart and looked like it was written in some sort of linux text editor. Although the other half of C++ programmers prefer this book over any other, I eventually used Lafore's Object Oriented Programming in C++ to learn the material. OOP in C++ is actually fun to read compared to the snoozers the old guys used to read.

In my opinion, there is no other technical writer that compares. He makes the material so easy you are convinced that you are missing something. When I hear a senior programmer talk in fear about data structures and that scary "Object Oriented Programming" I always have to question if they know something about OOP and DSA that I don't know about? Is there? Cuz I'm still questioning it. I'm ok with the OPP but that spegetti code scares the daylights out of me.

Drawbacks: Lafore only brushes the surface of Big O notation and pseudo code in his data structures book. He also worded the book so nicely that many of my senior programmers have made degrading comments about how the book was written for grade schoolers, yet they use my Lafore's Data Structure book 10 times more than they do their "MIT algorithms" book. That's got to say something.

If your taking a college course, use Lafore's books as backup text books. You'll be thankful you did.

I like this guys writing so much I wait for his next book as if it he was Stephen King. I feel like a groupie.

Well anyway..
Thanks,
Dave

Not Quite for Beginners

     This is not one of those Dummies books, or one you can learn in 12 or 21 days. This book shows you how to do Object Oriented Programming the right way, an area where many other books on the subject fall short. You are taught to do programming in a compartmentalized way, which more fully exploits the benefits and features of the C++ language. By using the methods in this book, you will create code that is more readable, reliable, and easier to maintain. The methods described will steer you away from those potentially weird and unsolvable problems, something which is very valuable, and yet most books seem to do a poor job at explaining. This alone earns the book 4 stars!

As a beginner I found this book really difficult to learn, and had to rely on other books in order to get a better grasp on the basics. Sams Teach Yourself C++ in 21 Days (Jesse Liberty, 4th edition) is a much better book for the beginner, and covers many things that were left out of Lafore's book. If you buy both books, you will find yourself way ahead of the learning curve, and might even find yourself being a much better programmer than most of the people out there doing this for a living, however, be forewarned, that your learning doesn't end here, and that C++ is a very difficult and time consuming language to learn.