Thinking in C++
CD-ROM contains: basic introductory seminar on the C concepts necessary to understand C++ or Java.
Stats for nerds
11recommend
21mentions
20people
2008–2026years
57% recommend43% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- A bit of a side note here regarding the author.
Bruce Eckel's book "Thinking in C++ Vols 1 and 2"[1][2] was possibly my favorite book ever read. Bruce is (in my personal opinion as an observer of people with zero professional training in psychology) a depth-first learner and naturally seeks to understand how things work by looking at the layers. Building up from there allows true understanding and even mastery of the material.
This is exactly how I am as well, and the result is often that it can take a while for me to pick things up and really understand them (since I have to cover so much more material than a typical person) but my level of mastery afterward is typically very high.
My experience now from well over a decade in the industry is that most people are not this way, and also that many people who are this way don't necessarily realize it. If you feel like understanding history, layers, etc helps you understand things much better, do yourself a favor and follow Bruce Eckel's blog and read his books. Thinking in C++ 2nd edition is 20 years old now. A third edition would be wonderful. Or maybe even better, "Thinking in Rust" :-D
[1] Volume 1 available for free on Archive.org: https://archive.org/details/TICPP2ndEdVolOne
[2] Volume 2 available for free on Archive.org: https://archive.org/details/TICPP2ndEdVolTwo
- "Thinking in C++" by Bruce Eckel
"Effective C++" by Scott Myers
- I didn't see Bruce Eckel's Thinking in C++; the PDF is free: http://mindview.net/Books/TICPP/ThinkingInCPP2e.html
I thought Eckel's book was especially good for someone who already had a background in C.
- I learned C from Kernihan & Richie (K&R) under supervision of experienced developers. I was really lost for a few days, the book is kind of terse. I had been developing in assembly for several years, so C felt like a really high level language. I still recall being baffled by pointers and handles, dealing with segmented memory (this was 386 days, Turbo C on the PC, MPW on the Mac for C & Pascal) It was about a month before things "clicked" and pointers made sense.
I think the follow-up C book I read after that was "Learning C". I don't recall the author's name(s) but I think it was from two brothers. Dan, something? (I'll check my bookshelf when I get home tonight and update here...).
I learned C++ initially as just 'C with Classes'. It was informal, by joining a C++ project already underway, and following the senior developer's guidelines. Instruction was informal, and under supervision of others, yet I hadn't made a complete mindshift to OO until probably six months to a year after using it.
I liked "Thinking in C++" (Bruce Eckel @ http://mindview.net/Books/TICPP/ThinkingInCPP2e.html ) quite a lot -- in fact I re-read it several times about six months apart and it seems I always pick up some new nugget of knowledge every time through. That or I forget what I don't use. Possible.
Keep in mind the newest of these is a decade old, at best. Surely not "modern" C. But after completing a basic tour of K&R C, a reader should be ready for the book at the top of this discussion. And that will transport them into this century.
hope this is helpful.
- Not universally. None of my university's Java based curriculum or my brother's university's Python based curriculum mentioned this. My community college's C++ based curriculum mentioned it in passing.
I seem to remember it being mentioned in Bruce Eckel's excellent "Thinking in C++".
That said, I'm kinda curious how much this affects Objective C objects.
- Go find a copy of Thinking in C++ by bruce eckel. He has a free version of it online (also volume two about the standard library).
The book is getting old but I still find it valuable and he builds up from C and teaches a whole lot more of the gotchas than this article does.
