[ale] C++ Fatwa! (was Language Jihad!)

[Joseph A. Knapka]

Fulton Green wrote:
> 
> Awesome points. Since the "Learn <language/> in <amount/> <timeunit/>s" don't
> really cut it, does anyone know of a good solid book (or set of books) that
> provide(s) a solid foundation for C++? I know there's "Thinking in Java" by
> Bruce Eckel, but you all may know of another one ...

Stroustrup, Bjarne, "The C++ Programming Language", latest edition
you can get, is a good start. Follow immediately with:
Meyers, Scott, "Effective C++" and "More Effective C++".

Doesn't Eckel have a "Thinking in C++" as well?

-- Joe
 
> On Mon, Jul 16, 2001 at 04:36:48PM -0600, Joseph A. Knapka wrote:
> > The problem I have with C++ basically stems from all the "Learn
> > C++ in 24 Hours" books you see on the shelves these days (not
> > as many as five years ago, but still pretty numerous). C++
> > is *not* a language anyone can learn in 24 hours: it has
> > all the low-level issues inherited from C wrt memory managment
> > etc, but buries them under an order of magnitude greater
> > complexity. I pick up those books and look at them from time to
> > time, and without fail they neglect to mention language features
> > that you *must* know about in order to write correct C++ code.
> > (Examples for the initiated: virtual dtors, delete vs delete[].)
> > The result of the C++ fad is that there is an enormous amount of
> > horrible, broken C++ code in the world, and an enourmous number
> > of incompetent C++ programmers. This is not entirely the fault
> > of those programmers!
> >
> > There are other languages that let you do what you want, that
> > have a feature set comparable to C++, and which you can
> > learn more or less completely in a couple of weeks. Use
> > them if you can.
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-- Joe Knapka
"You know how many remote castles there are along the gorges? You
 can't MOVE for remote castles!" -- Lu Tze re. Uberwald
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