Thread: is c++ for dummies any good?

You are judging a book by the cover. The publisher has nothing to do with the author.

Well, a publisher's quality matters a lot too. For example, I have yet to see a substandard programming book from O'Reilly.

I'm not a big book fan, so I can't really recommend any. The only C++ book (and indeed, the only programming-related book I ever bought) was pre-98, before cout was prefixed by std. I can tell you, you will rely less and less on books and tutorials and increasingly on manpages as you progress through the language. I learned most of what I know now by reading through online references and compiling programs, not by reading books or doing exercises.

In my opinion, to get a truly good grasp of C++, not only do you need a solid starting book, you also need to go through the likes of Effective C++, More Effective C++ (Meyers), The Standard Library (Josuttis), and quite a few more. Practice only makes perfect when someone's along to tell you when you do something wrong.

I've never heard of the books you speak of. My sources, to this point, have been:
a) Teach yourself C++ in 21 Days (Jesse Liberty) - Good book, IMO. Used for a month or so.
b) CProg - Excellent community. Used/contributed for several years, overlaps (a).
c) Google - Excellent resource. Time period overlaps (b) and continues to date.
d) MSDN - Excellent resource. Time period overlaps (b) and continues to date.
e) Visual Studio Help (i.e. MSDN)

That's right, I used C++ in 21 Days. While it's not perfect, it's pretty damn good. I also had two first-year university courses, but they didn't teach me anything new beyond (b) and (c) at the time.

IMO, there are only two ways to become proficient with C/C++ to a [good] professional level. The first is simply to gain career experience. The second is to work on complex projects of your own, constantly pushing the limits of what you know how to do, and actively participate at a high-quality forum like CProg. The latter part is important so that: (a) You can learn from people who really know. (b) You get a broad view of problems other people have, their solutions, and generally what *can* be done. (c) You can get your @ss shot off by the people mentioned in (a), when you pick up bad habits or do something stupid. Or unethical.

Hunter, the book I was talking about earlier is the one you mentioned Teach Yourself C++ in 24 hours, by Jesse Liberty, Third Edition. When I first started programming I didn't lean on using namespace std; I knew what was included in that because I didn't know about the statement. Which has lead me to use "using std::blah" for each one I use, so that I don't have to worry about some of the pitfalls. It also taught to use

Code:

int main() {return 0;)

instead of

Code:

void main() {}

Most of the basics that are said to beginers in here are explained in that book.

Like I said before that book, plus hundreds of tutorials accross the net has taught me to program.

>>Hunter, the book I was talking about earlier is the one you mentioned Teach Yourself C++ in 24 hours, by Jesse Liberty, Third Edition.
Actually, I was talking about 21 days, fourth edition I imagine the quality of the two books by the same author would be similar though.

>>In my personal experience, this forum is an excellent resource for becoming a master beginner.
Agreed; although, as with everything, how much you learn directly depends on how much you participate. In my case, CProg got me to the point where I can read docs and manuals, and figure stuff out on my own.

If you feel like you are past the beginner stage, and you haven't read any of Meyers' or Sutter's books (or even if you have), then you should absolutely read C++ Coding Standards to get a summary of all the best practices that you rarely find mention of in beginner books or even on forums like this.

This is a good point. While docs are great for learning to use flashy new features and third-party APIs, it seems that technique has to be taught (i.e. via a book), or learned by long and painful experience. In my case, it's been about 50-50 between the two, with most of the former coming from CProg, but for some time now I've been meaning to pick up one or two of the previously recommended books.