Jumping into C++ Illustrated Edition

First of all, I took an intro to programming course at college. Due to having to return to work, I could not continue. This book is great at showing you how to program using C++. It is also great for teaching you how to set up a compiler for C++.What is not so great... Please do not use this book as your only source to learn to program. You can learn but you will not learn exactly why you are doing things the way you are doing them and I personally believe you will learn to be a super lazy programmer with no idea how to logically write your code out on paper for review.If you have taken computer programming intros or any other programming classes, this book is probably too easy for you. I read the first five chapters and have only taken an intro class before and this book is too easy. I just stared reading my 'Programming Principles and Practice Using C++' which is a much better read for my level. It goes more in to detail and teaches the why behind the "do."All in all, if you are starting from no knowledge what-so-ever, read this book, and then move on to the 'Programming Principles.' You should super appreciate this book that way.P.S. I did not know how to use the compiler when I started this book and it did show me what I probably could have learned on youtube in ten minutes. However, the other book shows you that too... It is just hidden a little bit a the very end of the first chapter.

I started this book as with a decent grasp of programming in general, and of C++ specifically, so I mostly just skimmed the first 2/3 or so. However, I'm mostly self-taught, so there are lots of random little patches missing in what I know which someone who took a more structured path will likely not have missed; in short, I've found this to be exactly what I needed to fill many of those in. I tried to use a couple other intro to C++ books for this purpose, but they were overly focused on being intro to programming books, so I had a hard time teasing out things I didn't already know. With that said, if you have a rudimentary understanding of programming (if you know what variables and functions are, for example), and you want to learn C++, I think this book is the best available. The order in which topics are introduced means that you aren't having to worry about OOP or header files or linking or other such tedium until just when you need to. And, as a bonus, you also get some exposure to data structures and other topics not always covered in language-introduction books.

A great book. Not perfect, but great. My background is that, when I was about 10 to 15 years younger, I was learning C. I got up to the point of doing file in/out and then the class was over and I moved on.Ten years later and I'm getting a degree in CS and the first classes will be taught using C++ to cover the concepts and as a baseline language. This seems fine. But I want to go in understanding, at a minimum, the syntax and knowing what I once knew. It was easy for me to get started using the recommended CODE:Blocks IDE for Windows and jump right into making simple command line programs. Things have been smooth up until pointers. I've spent a lot of time doing the excercises, which consist of about 5 or so quiz questions at the end of each section and some "problems". The quizes are good quick knowledge checks, as any quiz will be. The problems vary in difficulty.Sometimes I think the problem he presents is too advanced considering what has been covered so far, and I think this is on purpose in some cases. For example, you'll do a problem like coding a menu, and then the next chapter he introduces switch cases. Or you'll be asked to do something for which an array would be perfect, but you only find out about arrays in the next chapter.Other problems I find to be impossible based on my current skill level so far. Write a game of checkers that actually functions? Um... I know it's possible with nothing but loops and variables, but the design patterns and algorithms are something I don't have time to put into during a first run at the topic. And that is why I'm going to school to get the degree!Some topics he does not explain as well as some free online tutorials, either. Pointers, for example. I have found the tutorial at http://www.tutorialspoint.com/cplusplus/cpp_pointers.htm to be a lot easier, for example, than reading through his broken chapters. But again, this is learning, you sometimes need to hear things different ways for it to make sense.Overall, I'm very happy with my purchase and there was a South Park reference regarding underpants gnomes that really made me happy. I just wish that the author presented some things differently so far. I'm only about 170 pages in, though, so my score may go up or down in the futre.