2 comments about The C++ Standard Library Extensions: A Tutorial and Reference.

1. There are many, perhaps too many, books on C++. But Becker breaks new ground. He presents what is coming down the road towards the current C++ programmer. The existing C++ standard library is good but limited. The widespread use of C++ led to recognition of useful classes that should be in this library but are not. After some years of dilly dallying, Technical Report 1 was produced. Work started in 2001. Six years!
   
   This book explains the classes in TR1. While it is not guaranteed that all of TR1 will make it into the next official standard library, most certainly will. The only real question is when that revision will be released. Given the way C++ changes so slowly, don't hold your breath.
   
   In the interim, you can make good professional use of your time by studying TR1 via this book. It's not a simple rendition of the classes. Becker devotes considerable space to explaining the usages of the new classes. Giving you the gist of what they are about. Just as importantly, each chapter has a set of exercises involving its classes. Tackling these is probably the best way to gain experience.
   
   Of the new classes, what interests you most will vary with the reader. Personally, I was most impressed with the Numerics. Huge improvements in dealing with floats and overflows (NaNs). And for physicists or engineers, there are specialised functions that will save some coding. Laguerre polynomials, Legendre functions, gamma functions, Bessel functions and Hermite polynomials, amongst others. A far richer set than what you currently get in the standard library.



2. This will become a "must have" book for C++ programmers. It is both easy to understand and authoritative at the same time. It will be useful for a long, long time, first as a learning tool and then as a reference.
   
   Implementations of TR1 are now available from Boost (free) and Dinkumware (reasonably priced), so these library components are something that a C++ programmer can start using right away. Most or all of them will also be part of the next standard, so they are sure to become ever more widely used.
   
   I like the fact the book is hard-cover, since it is likely to get a lot of use. Maybe I'm old fashioned, but I still think a book like this is the easiest way to study something new, and really learn about it.
   
   I already posted one review, but Amazon seems to have lost it. I'm surprised there haven't been more reviews posted - the book deserves more.

5 comments about Data Structures and Algorithms in C++.

1. Although I have bought this book for its C++ emphasis for DSA, I have found it very good at teaching DSA itself. It has very clear explanations, well chosen examples, and depth enough coverage with along clear and easy to understand code illustrations in C++. The book teaches the topics in an incremental manner by making connections among different related DS and algorithms, which are helpful in understanding the theory.
   
   Its layout for teaching a topic consists of three parts: 1) Introducing the data structure or algorithms with an informal language. It relates it with other similar ones, and explains the differences. 2) It shows C++ implementation (it does not have C++ codes for all DS and A's; however, I think what it has is enough for such a book) and explanations, even some alternative implementations. 3) It has complexity analysis for the algorithm, and any drawbacks. Drozdek has concluded the each chapter with an case study and provides full implementation in C++.
   
   I have extensively studied Cormen's book of "Introduction to Algorithms", which I really like, however, this book is much better at teaching the fundamentals of the DSA topics and has better figures although Cormen's book is more in-depth and has more topics covered, and more academic. If you are looking at more implementation of the DSA with some in-depth theory, Drozdek's book is more useful. If you need more academic study on DSA, Cormen's book would be more helpful (in fact, I suggest both of them).
   
   Another thing I like in this book is its chapter for Memory Management. Although this is an OS topic, it covers it since many DSA requires dynamic memory allocations, and I think it is good at teaching the basics of data structures and algorithms used in memory management.
   
   In short, I strongly suggest this book to programmers who wants to understand DSA and CS students, and also the ones want to have a reference book. I think C++ codes are extra for those who are programming in C++.



2. On my bookshelf right now I have 13 books on DS&A using C++. Every time I am in need of a new type of data structure or algorithm, and quickly scan through each of them to determine which seem to have the most relevant information, and also which have useable source-code. Drozdek's book is almost always the book I end up selecting to learn a new topic.
   
   Without a doubt, Drozdek's DS&A book is the most complete and well-written of its kind. It includes a chapter of graphs, which many books surprisingly omit. Also, as of the 3rd edition, it includes a chapter on string matching. As far as I know, this is the *only* C++ DS&A book to dive into this subject.
   
   Surprisingly (because of such a broad-scoped book), the material presented in the string matching chapter is modern and incredibly useful. I found the coverage of suffix tries to be excellent. According to Professor Drozdek (via email correspondence), this chapter is actually a compressed version of what was to be an entire C++ book on string matching. Apparently no publisher would touch such a 'specialized' book. How short-sighted of them!
   
   I work in a research-intensive company focused on developing cutting-edge algorithms to solve difficult modern problems. We do the majority of our coding in C++, which is what originally attracted me to Drozdek's book. Since then, I have referred several colleagues to this book, all of which now use it regularly and are loving it.
   
   My only complaint about this book is that it doesn't discuss primality or random-number generation at all. So many algorithms rely heavily on one or both of these, so I find it strange that this book (and most others) completely ignore them.
   
   As for the reviewer who negatively commented "worst written educational book I have ever read", this person obviously bought Drozdek's book expecting to learn C++ and not DS&A. If you're looking to learn C++, I recommend "C++ Primer Plus (5th Edition)" by Stephen Prata (ISBN: 0672326973). Despite its awkward title and oft-maligned publisher, it really is an excellent book for learning C++ (and also as a reference for an experienced programmer).
   
   Depending on your needs, you might look into supplementing Drozdek's book with Robert Sedgewick's books 'Algorithms in C++'. His books do not go as deep as Drozdek does, but he provides an enormous number of fully implemented algorithms that don't exist in any other C++ DS&A book. Be sure to get the 3rd edition; it is much improved over the 2nd.
   
   Here's a complete TOC of Drozdek's book (3rd edition):
   Table of Contents
   1. Object-Oriented Programming Using C++
   2. Complexity Analysis
   3. Linked Lists
   4. Stacks and Queues
   5. Recursion
   6. Binary Trees
   7. Multiway Trees
   8. Graphs
   9. Sorting
   10. Hashing
   11. Data Compression
   12. Memory Management
   13. String Matching
   Appendices
   A: Computing BIG-O
   B: Algorithms in the Standard Template Library
   C: NP-Completeness



3. I bought this book due to the other reviews and targeting the string matching chapter. But when it arrived, I was able to directly apply tree other topics in my current work (skip list, recursion parser and expression tree). It saved me a lot of research, so I'm very happy with it.



4. I saw a different picture when i order it but got a totally different book from what I expected, but it was only $6.95 so i just kept it.



5. Mr. Drozdek must be creating false accounts and giving himself good reviews; that is the only way to explain this book's high rating. This is without a single doubt the worst text I've ever had to use. If you are a professor or someone looking for self-study, pass this one by! If you are a student taking a class with this as a required text, have a good secondary text handy. D.S. Malik has a decent C++ DS text that I used as my real 'study' text for my DS course. Again, STAY AWAY from this book at all costs!!!!!!!

5 comments about Schaum's Outline of Programming with C++.

1. Who referred to this book having mistakes:
   
   They seem to be stuck in the stone ages of C programming.
   
   Since the new ANSI standard came out, (which compilers are still attempting to catch up to), header files have not used a .h extension, C Standard library headers have been renamed and so on.
   
   Every negative point the person makes indicates a complete lack of knowledge, especially accurate knowledge of the C++ standard.
   
   As such that review should be completely and utterly disregarded.
   
   This book is definitely head and shoulders above the crap that people like Herb Schildt have been putting out.
   
   Thanks.



2. The book is good but it doesnt cover struct's and unions. unions are worth there weight in gold in data i/o programming. The book has not got a mistake on it as the "Shaun G Pearson of nova scotia put it". Its using the newer C++ library and is part of it. (...) I suppose the book doesn't want to go to far into C stuff. C is essential to writing clear and concise code in C++. But at the price the book is at its a good buy. I've got it.



3. Very informative introduction to C++. I was new to C++ and most textbooks are hard to understand and hence requires a teacher to explain everything. I started reading it halfway through the course and got a C+ when I was expecting an F.



4. Dieses outlet bietet eine sehr gute Zusammenfassung der meissten Aspekte von C++. Es ist kein Anfängertutorial und auch kein Referenzbuch, eignet sich aber sehr gut zum Nachschlagen.
   
   Die Erklärungen sind, im Vergleich mit anderen Büchern, kurz und sehr gut ausgeführt, zusätzlich bietet es noch viele Beispiele zur Vertiefung. Es ist in einfachem, leicht verständlichem Englisch geschrieben. Durch das praktische Format kann man es auch leichter mitnehmen als 1000 seitige Wälzer.
   
   Besonders für die guten Erklärungen und den Preis vergebe ich die vollen Punkte.



5. This is an excellent supplement to most of the college level textbooks in C++ programming. Many authors of C++ textbooks are taken up by the apparent need to illustrate complex object oriented concepts (lest Java be seen as the alpha and omega in object oriented languages)with long winded "case studies" or "programming projects" that seem contrived (see any book by Deitel for examples of such.)Some other authors think that their exercises and examples are places to showcase their ingenuity and possession of programming tricks (see Daniel Liang's "Displaying A Pyramid Of Numbers" in Chapter 3 of Introduction to JAVA Programming, Comprehensive Version, 5th Edition, as an example of such.) But what about simple exercises to see if you've mastered the basics of arrays, loops, and simple functions? Let's face it, it will be a couple of years before you'll be asked to work on the code for an ATM machine (Deitel), in the meantime buy this book and focus on the basics.

5 comments about Thinking in C++, Volume 2: Practical Programming (Thinking in C++).

1. In this book i found everything about the standard c++ library.
   Recommended if you wanna do something serous with c++



2. Bruce Eckel, Thinking in C++, vol. 2 (Mindview, 2004)
   
   
   I was a big, big fan of Volume I of this two-volume set. I first read it four or five years ago, and it was a big part of the foundation that helped me to understand why some of the newer pieces of the C++ architecture are useful (read "newer" as "when I was your age, boy, we had to walk to school, `cause we didn't have none of them new-fangled templates to ride on!"). It took me a while to get round to reading the second volume. It's more of the same, but different. Volume 2 seems more like a reference book, and far more of it is devoted to bleeding-edge (at the time) concepts than was vol. 1--design patterns, threading, that sort of thing. Of course, these days, they're all relatively common (thanks in no small part to Microsoft having already implemented most of this stuff in .NET), so this one's better thought of as a refresher course, or a book for people like me who are hopelessly backed up trying to keep pace with the Joneses (or the Redmonds). ***



3. This book is a must! It is not that visually appealing but in pair with the Vol. 1 it is a mandatory book that will help you featuring out all the brighter and dustier corners of C++. The text is quite clear and the examples very appropriate. It is written with a nice scientific background and the author doesn't limit himself to just expose all the C++ features.



4. Amazon delivered on its promise. Great pricing with quick shipping. Can't beat that.



5. Have to say "a bit boring" but absolutely a must if you want to learn C++.

3 comments about Intel Threading Building Blocks: Outfitting C++ for Multi-core Processor Parallelism.

1. There are many views of how best to implement multi-threading and with multi-core processors now common the topic is becoming ever more relevant. Of course the best implementation method really depends on what you are trying to do. Are you implementing something that waits for a price update message from a derivatives exchange, parses the message, updates cached data, writes a log and forwards the message on to an algorithmic trading engine? If so, you'll probably be attracted to techniques different from someone calculating risk, bond prices etc. There is no one technique that suits every job.
   
   Anyone working with multi-threading (and parallelism in general) keeps an eye on what techniques other people are using to see whether they may be useful. That's why I bought this book (Intel Threading Building Blocks) and TBB certainly looks like it will be of use for some multi-threaded applications that I develop, although not for all.
   
   Starting with the most important question - have I learnt anything from reading this book. Yes, and I've learnt a couple of bits from reading the TBB source code too (downloadable from the web). Now for the detail...
   
   Having read the book, am I now about to start using the Intel Threading Building Blocks library (downloadable from Intel)? The answer is yes, for some applications on some hardware architectures, but not for all of my multi-threaded applications. Importantly in terms of this book though, the first reason I looked at the TBB source code was to answer questions raised when reading the book, and that is my main issue with this book. For a developer who already has extensive multi-threading experience, this book raises quite a few questions that it doesn't answer.
   
   Even some of the things that this book does answer are tucked away in the text a long way into the book. Here are three examples:
   (1) The book tells you to create tasks, not explicitly work with threads. Where is the best description of a task? Page 267. It's not even in a glossary, but tucked away in the examples chapter. Somewhere in the first chapter would have been more useful.
   (2) Personally, if I am told within the first few pages that TBB is based on the idea of developers implementing their systems as small tasks that are scheduled by the TBB scheduler I am immediately going to ask how that task is handled at a technical level. Ok, we're told quickly that it's written as a functor, and that functors may be executed on different cores, but does that mean that a thread is chosen from a thread pool to execute each functor, that (on Windows) fibers are used, that there is one manager thread running per core (with processor affinity set?) with each manager pulling tasks from its own queue, what are the performance implications of context switching and locking, etc? The author may think that the reader doesn't need this level of detail, but if somebody is going to the trouble of writing multithreaded code to improve performance I would think it very likely that they will want to know what is happening beneath the surface to ensure that they are using the best techniques. Some details of the scheduler are provided much further into the book (for instance we discover that last-in, first-out deques are used), but not enough and far too late.
   (3) On page 133 there are two paragraphs discussing when task-based programming is inappropriate, a bit late in my opinion for those people for whom it does turn out to be inappropriate.
   
   I also have issues with some of the things presented as absolute fact in the book. For example "Race conditions are less catastrophic than deadlocks". I disagree. With a deadlock your program stops, you know about it very quickly, you investigate and you sort it out. If it happens, it'll probably only happen once. With a race condition you may not even realise it exists, the application produces subtly incorrect results and hence your functionality goes awry. If that means your algorithmic trading engine decides to buy a million shares instead of doing nothing (or selling) then you are going to lose a lot of money very quickly. Possibly not just once, but day after day until you realise the race condition is there.
   
   Then there are the bits that are just plain confusing. Here are two examples:
   (a) We are told on page 271 that Task stealing is "Terrible" and "will disrupt cached data", but are told on page 283 that TBB is "unique because it rests on a few key decisions" including "Use task stealing". Hmmm...
   (b) The code comment on page 231, "2 = 1 for SideShow and C". I know what it means, but adding a verb phrase would prevent the moment when the reader wonders just which proof is about to be presented that "2 = 1".
   
   On the plus side, the book does discuss the split/join pattern, pipelines, atomic operations, benefits of working in user space, issues with the standard new operator (and hence libraries that make use of it), caching issues etc. There is also a chapter on general "Keys to Success" which is useful. There are also some reasonable examples towards the end of the book (although some half way through would be better replaced - demonstrating a point is one thing, but demonstrating it with realistic code is better).
   
   Possibly outside the intended scope of the book, it might have been useful to briefly describe grid computing and whether Intel have plans to add a layer above TBB for use across grids instead of just on one machine, or whether Intel's plans for grid computing simply rely on a completely different model.
   
   So to summarise, the TBB library from Intel looks like it could be very useful, this book will certainly get you started using it, but have no doubt that this book could have been better. Buy it if you will be using TBB, but until somebody writes a better book be prepared to read the TBB source code to find the answers to your deeper questions, or simply ask questions on Intel's web-site.



2. I agree with Hardman's review as far as it goes -- the book cannot go into as much detail as he would like since it is designed to be cross platform (and surprisingly also applicable to other similar chips e.g., AMD).
   
   On the other hand, this book opens you up to an important area: how can you use a small number of cores to speed up your program, including those programs that appear serial at first (and maybe second) glance e.g., the cumulative sum of a vector.
   
   The book has a lot of depth on the algorithms used and works through applications of differing complexity and varied domains.
   
   As an extra bonus it provides annotated pointers to its intellectual predecessors, albeit not as extensive as Hillis' book.The Connection Machine (Artificial Intelligence)



3. I bought this book with the hope that I could find the answers to solving a couple of problems.
   
   The first problem being writing parallel threaded code in a standardized way.
   
   The second problem being writing the OS threads and associated message queues in a way that is abstracted from the OS.
   
   In the end I have not used the lessons from this book yet. After reading it I was left with the impression that the inventors are on to something novel; however, the implementation is not yet complete. I find myself asking if this winds up being like Sony's Betamax.
   
   Only time will tell.

5 comments about C++ Programming 101.

1. This book is an excellent book for learning C++. It teaches you the fundamentals, and it will keep you coming back for more and more reading because you are learning something about the language. I highly recommend this book to anyone who doesn't know anything about C++. I can't believe I'm learning C++! Buy the book, you won't be sorry.



2. I've tried learning C++ from many books from various authors. Many started out well, and, by so doing, led me to a false belief that they would actually teach me the language. Each time, I came away frustrated. Perry's book is, however, the one and only exception I have thus far found. Not only does it start out well, it STAYS that way. It genuinely teaches you C++. I find myself actually looking forward to reading and studying from it. This is simply the best book written to date on C++. Now, if I could only get Perry to write one on Visual C++, I would really be in business!



3. Out of all the souce books I have on C++, this book is without a doubt the most user friendly and comprehensive that I have found. I consider myself lucky to have come across it. Obviously, the author not only knows his subject, but also knows how to write for the reader. For once, a book that purports to be for beginners is written for the beginner. If you can get your hands on this book, do it. The book stops at OOP which is a very good place to change course and speed.



4. If you have absolutely no idea of C++, this is a great book to begin. Though it does not cover much (any) of OOPs, its a nice book to get you hands wet with. This book can easily be read over a couple of days. I strongly recommend Greg Perry's sequel to this book "Moving from C to C++" for a neat understanding of OOPs. I read these two books and was doing great in my C++ course. The nice thing about these two books is that it gives the reader a nice conceptual understanding of why C++ is doing many of the things that is does as against C.



5. If you are thinking about learning how to program in C++, this book is for you. I've used many books and must say that this is definitively the best book for absolute beginner. Greg goes at a nice pace that's easy for most to pick up. Book introduces program flow controls, scopes, functions, basic I/Os, arrays and pointers and touches up on object-oriented programming. Review questions and review excercises at the end of each chapter are helpful in testing your knowledge of a particular chapter. If you are looking for extensive OOP that book is not for you, otherwise a beginner cannot go wrong with this book.

5 comments about Modeling Derivatives Applications in Matlab, C++, and Excel.

1. Derivatives are not simple things. It almost seems that complexity was a design goal when they were being set up. In order to determine their real value either today or in the future you almost have to model them on a computer.
   
   This book covers dozens of different types of derivatives, including the common ones and some of the new even more esoteric ones. It talks about the structure of the derivative, and then presents models of them. The models are presented in the most common modelling 'languages' in use today. There is a lot of code involved, but there is not a CD included with the book. Instead, an access code providing a one time download for the code. Note, a one time download. Be sure and save the code quickly and on several media. This procedure allows the models to be updated as needed without regard to the time it takes for the book to move from being written to being published, but if you have a disk crash....
   
   The biggest things this book provides are: first, you get to see what an expert in the field has done, and second, you get the code to run his models on your system, and of course you can modify them if you find some other aspect suits your needs better.
   
   This is a new book, first printed in December 2006, so it is current with the derivatives being marketing at that time.



2. Great book. But the code downloading process is a bit weird. Don't know why they just attach a CD.



3. This book was my ultimate go-to resource on several financial engineering projects (on the buy side). It covers many different derivatives and provides example MatLab and C++ code that is easy to modify and extend.
   
   The instructions for setup and downloading the code could be more clear, perhaps on a CD.



4. This book offers prebuilt, modifiable code that you can use for energy, power, weather and many other derivatives applications. The download process is fast and easy. For those who use Matlab, C++, or Excel, there is no competition. A great book with unique content and code.



5. I highlight two points:
   
   1. The inclusion of Matlab and Excel code in almost all topics of the book.
   2. All the content is new and more advanced, there is no recovered topics of his previous book.

3 comments about C Pocket Reference.

1. True to its name, this book packs a lot of information in a pocket size package: a solid language description, a quick reference to the C standard library covering C99 and, last but not least, an extensive index. It is well organized and concise, it explains and gives you examples. If you are a newbie to C programming looking for a tutorial, keep your hands off. If you have grasped some basics of C programming, get it and use it!



2. This is a great book, for the size of the book it is packed full of
   C. It also covers alot of C99.



3. I am a computer Science Student and the one book that I take to every class is this book. It is the perfect book for quick lookup I would recomend it to anyone

5 comments about The Purchasing and Supply Manager's Guide To The C.P.M. Exam.

1. This book provides a great study guide for the CPM exam. The book is divided into the 4 sections of the exam which allows you to focus on the necessary material. It also includes a CD with lots of sample exam questions you can use to practice.



2. Wow- I love the book but especially the CD. I bought the book, took a couple days to cram, practiced on the test samples, took the actual exams over three days, and passed all.
   Nothing can take the place of subject matter expertise, which is tough to get from one book, but this sure helped. There is NO WAY I would have passed without this as study aid.



3. I bought this as an economical study reference. It is a great overview for key concepts but find additional sources to study by.
   
   It took me failing the first test (after studing only from this book) to realize that the CPM exam answers are fomulated in a subjective manner. Many questions and answers are vauge and situational oriented. Questions are often worded as: choose the "most likely" or "least likely" answer, leaving 2 valid answers, the correct of which may depend on an organization's preference or even a buyer's experience!
   
   The test seems to raise the difficulty by way intrepertation in an effort to ligitimize the CPM certification. The test is worded with such verbeage that I believe that it must have been written by a tenured government employee or mid level manager with a thesaurus.
   
   As a purchasing professional with many years of experience, I found that most real world application and testing for certification in theory are quite different with occasional convergence.
   
   The certification process will weed out the weak and I do take full responsibility for my first failure. Now that I know the rules of engagement, the battle is mine to be won.
   
   Hats off to the authors for effectively simplifying a "complexable" (yes, I made that up!) subject.
   
   It is a great reference and I will likely use it to train the buyers in our organization.



4. I think it is an excellent book for the CPM exam but shouldn't be the only source to study. It definately gives idea about the exam and covers some topics to be prepeared but if you need more in debt information, have time and funds, it is better to get ISM Workbooks also.
   
   I have both ISM Workbook modules and this book. I studied from both. ISM Workbooks covers more topics. I personally like to study in Starbucks, and on trips. If you had seen ISM Workbooks, they are not really much mobile. You can just throw this book in your laptop bag and go over some topics on your coffee break.
   
   Shortly, I think it is a good purchase for CPM Exam, but "may" not be enough if you really need to fill some technical gaps in CPM exam materials.



5. Great book for summary of the CPM module knowledge base but there are flatly exam topics the book does not cover. I passed the 4 CPM Modules on the first try using this reference and the 2 available practice exams, Diagnostic Kits as they are called, from ISM (they are relatively affordable). The latter was exceptionally valuable in giving me a taste of the exam questions and the answers detail in the kits helped fill in several loose and missed topics in the The Purchasing and Supply Manager's Guide To The C.P.M. Exam. Good Luck.

5 comments about C++ Programming for the Absolute Beginner (For the Absolute Beginner).

1. This book is a decent beginners book, but I feel that it isn't exactly for the absolute beginner. The challenges at the end of each chapter could be a lot better, they don't completely test comprehension of all concepts in the chapter. If you are already familiar with another programming language, this is a good book to get you started with C++.



2. This book was the most useful, informative, easiest, greatest reference for learning C++ in the world until it got into the chapters on directX programming. The book used directX7 while the world has moved on to DirectX 9 (and in the very near future DirectX 10).
   
   I wholeheartedly reccommend the book to the beginning c++ programmer as a tool to teach you all the basics up to basic WINAPI programming. After that though, you will need a different book.



3. 
   I have just started working with the book and while it seems fine and straightforward thus far, the package is flawed at a very basic level. The accompanying CD contains quite a bit but what it does not contain is CodeWarrior (the program referenced in the text) or a similiar program for actually working with C++. To be perfectly clear, you must first acquire software elsewhere before you be able to begin using the information and exercises in the text AT ALL. It strikes me as a very serious oversight / error on the part of the authors to have not included at least a trial version of the required software in order to let people use the book upon receipt.



4. I would agree with what most people have said. I would like to caution people however that there are many errors. If you are a complete noob to programming you may not catch these. This will slow down your learning and may frustrate you enough to quite. I would recommend 'Beginning C++ Game Programming' over this book. However, I do think that this book is great because the explanations are quick and concise. Used with another resource this book is great.



5. This book started out good, but then got me dissappointed because since i'm a beginner in this programming stuff, i found myself having to fix the errors of the programming samples that they had in the book. Ofcourse that was extremely hard for me, since the job of this book was to teach me c++ programming, especially for a beginner in this area. Not for me to fix their porblems with no programming experience. Horrible book!!