Data Structures and Other Objects Using C++ (2nd Edition)

Rating:
Summary: A book students should NOT be learning from...
Review: This book is actually worse than a 'C masquerading as C++' type book. It mixes crappy C toolkits (linked list, etc) with C++ code. You NEVER EVER break encapsulation like this! Any students learning to code from this book will produce sloppy/amateur code at best, and are developing bad habits that will hurt them later. This book has been used at the college I go to, and ultimately students come out more confused about how to appropriately use C++. The toolkits themselves are amateur at best, and the functions inside them don't handle the special cases. I assume the authors left this as exercises for the students, but it really defeats the notion of their 'toolkits' -- it just leaves students confused. That said, the textual portion of the book is so-so, but the quality of the code leaves MUCH to be desired. I don't expect production quality code from books, but it should at least have good style and appropriate use of the language constructs. This book has neither. You've been warned!

Rating:
Summary: Good book, but very academic
Review: This book is being used for CMIS 240 (the second semester computer and information science course) at University of Maryland University College. It's quite academic and geared towards the more intelligent reader. The examples are simple and go well with the text, but are not detailed enough to help you to debug your own code.

Rating:
Summary: The most thorough and intelligent introduction to C++ ever
Review: This book is in my opinion the "bible" of C++ programming books. It is well-structured, precise and provides examples of how to implement commonly encountered algorithms and data structures such as equation evaluation, linked lists and recursive algorithms.
Combined with the source codes on the accompaning website, it is a invaluable source on C++ programming.

Rating:
Summary: The most thorough and intelligent introduction to C++ ever
Review: This book is in my opinion the "bible" of C++ programming books. It is well-structured, precise and provides examples of how to implement commonly encountered algorithms and data structures such as equation evaluation, linked lists and recursive algorithms.
Combined with the source codes on the accompaning website, it is a invaluable source on C++ programming.

Rating:
Summary: Some samples do not work with MS Visual C++
Review: This book was a required textbook for my class. Most of the samples in this book had to be rewritten by my professor on the blackboard to make them work with Visual C++. Alterations to the code are required before writing them. If it wasn't for my background in C++, I would not have been able to work with this book. An understanding of the C++ syntax and libraries are necessary before using the code in the samples.

Rating:
Summary: So bad, it's scary
Review: This book was, unfortunately, a required text at my university, in 2nd semester intro to programming. In short, this book is down-right scary. Not only does it suggest that students use strange, esoteric, and sometimes frightening code and habits (assert()? for trivial code fragments? Students should learn to deal with it, not break the program for every little detail), it also does a very poor job of explaining the material. Furthermore, it spends most parts of any given chapter (~80%) giving drab, pointless examples and then proceeding therewith to waste valuable space implementing the code. While the book does implement the classic data structures (stacks, queues, etc), it does a poor job even at that. At no time during the entire book did I feel that I was enlightened. Mostly, I just felt that I had wasted many greenbacks buying a book that was neither useful nor interesting. Unfortunately, it seems to have the flavor of many standard academic programming books. This book goes even further: it misses the point of data structures, and does a horrid job of teaching them in C++. Spare yourself. There are plenty of better, CHEAPER books on the topic. Don't buy it even if it is a required text! In short: HIGHLY UNRECOMMENDED for anyone other than experts in the field looking for books not to recommend.

Rating:
Summary: Student
Review: This is not a good book. If you need to use this book for a class, be sure to supplement it with something else. Its coverage of inheritance and polymorphism is not very good. Refer to Deitel & Deitel C++ How to Program 2nd Ed. chapters 9 and 10. It will save you a headache. Also, look over the data structures chapter in Deitel & Deitel for code snippets for projects. For a few laughs, you might want to try downloading some of the authors source code and watching it throw compile errors with VC++.

If you don't need this book for a class, try not to buy it unless you are held at gunpoint and forced to.