Rating: 
Summary: I dread the thought of working w. people who havent read it
Review: It is really scary to be a C++ programmer and having to collaborate with people that havent read this book. It is literally like difusing a time bomb. C++, while a great language, has so many traps, especially on memory management, that makes it really easy, even for the non-beginner, to fall in. In this book you will find DEADLY snipets of code that will not raise suspicion even to seasoned programmers. This book, explains the whys and the hows of these deadly situations that any compiler will happily compile, but will create long term and very difficult to find bugs. I consider this book to be part of the formal training of any C++ programmer. I feel nervous with colleagues that have not read it. Cudos to Scott Meyers. Even though I already have the paperback, I am now ordering the CD with the 50+35 ways to improve your code. I just cant afford not having both in my laptop.
Rating:
Summary: Quite useful
Review: What sets this book apart from many others is its direction, style, readability and brevity. I guess Scott Meyers should be one of those most gifted authors the readability of whom adds weight to the book. The book is short - very short if you compare it with the other 800-pound gorillas - and hence to the point. I recommend this book to any intermediate-level C++ programmer who wants to improve on class design and general programming approaches.
Rating: 
Summary: A must read for all C++ programmers
Review: An intelligent person (PhD) studied OOP and C++ in particular in great detail and then came up with a set of sensible recommendations on how to use this powerful and flexible language. Just what the doctor ordered! Surprisingly easy to read. This is not a primer, but as a second or third C++ book it is *highly recommended*.
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Summary: deleted
Review: deleted
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Summary: Great weekend fun!
Review: Know what I did for fun this weekend? I scrubbed my code with all the neat tricks I learned in Effective C++ and its companion, Effective STL. It was a blast! What a joy to take all those little things in my code that have been bothering me and *finally* fixing them by doing a #include<Effective C++> and #include<Effective STL>. This book, like Effective STL, is the best thing you can do for your code. Period. Chock full of hints, tips, dos and don'ts, you'll be a much better programmer in no time flat. Although this is not a reference work, neither is it a book that you read cover to cover. Best thing to do is what I did: look at the things you hate about your code and then go find the fix for them in Scott Meyers' books. Better yet...have fun with it and save it for the weekend (woo hoo!).
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Summary: Essential to a professional
Review: I'm not going to repeat the book contents. You can find it here or on the publisher's website. Others also commented on it more or less. I'd just like to make a few points that may have an influence on your decision to read or buy the book. I agree with the opinion of lots of people who already posted their reviews here that this book is an essential read for profesional C++ programmers. If a professional does not do things more or less in the fashion described in the book, he/she isn't doing them right. With increasing experience over the years, a professional would naturally approach the right ways, but the book collects distilled wisdom in one place and would accelarate one's accetance and practice of them. Still I believe there are professionals who have not read the book, which is a shame to themselves and bad for the reputation of software products. Another point I want to make is that the book deserves multiple readings. In other words, it's not a book you read once and then throw away (or sell here :-), which is indeed the case for more than 99.999% of the books ever published. It makes a perfect companion as one develops his/her career engineering software systems/applications in C++ & its associated libraries/tools. One thing I noticed when reading it is that the items about memory management appear near the beginning of the book. Compared to most other items later on, they are less quick to understand. So you may want keep that in mind so as not to be discouraged. I believe you may read the 50 items in the book in a random order. To adequately appreciate the book, it's likely necessary for one to have at least read a couple of C++ books (such as Accelarated C++ by Koenig & Moo and C++ Primer by Lippman) and at least a few months of experience on a job coding in C++. All in all, this book is strongly recommended and a must read for professionals.
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Summary: So Great a book
Review: this is the very book i have ever seen.
it express the importance of C++ and give some wonderful advice
to me. althought i are reading the chinese edition ,
i also get a lot. if i can see the english one , i think my
skill will improve greatly.
it tells me the OO and design , which are the valuable thing
to programming.
if you are the rookie or expert , if you read it , i can say
your programme is improving, and your C++ kownledege raise a lot .
just start to read the book, or reread the book.
Rating:
Summary: Absolutely essential for the professional C++ Programmer
Review: This book and it's sequels should be on the desks of every C++ programmer. Scott distills all of the subtle gotchas of a language which is full of them into clear, simple chapters. This book has signifigantly improved my coding practice.
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Summary: Great value book
Review: This has been my first C++ book after Stroustrup's.
After reading it I can say that much of the stuff in this book can also be found on Stroustrup's. What is the added value of this book then ?
Objectively, it brings some techniques that you may encounter for the first time here, and that once learned they use to become bread & butter of everyday programming. Think about the body/handle or letter/envelope patterns. You can learn them from Coplien's, from Gang of Four's "Design Pattern" or elsewhere. However Meyers' account on these topics is truly straightforward and expanded (respect to Coplien's, e.g.).
But there's more. A single read of a big manual (e.g. Stroustrup or Lippman or Deitels) will often result as not enough impressing to the novice, especially if the read has been a fast one ("we need that you learn C++ as soon as possible ..."). Too many details could pass unobserved; hence a second, slower read would be a good idea. But reading such a manual twice, from the first to the last page, is something that require a fair amount of courage. It's at this point that books like this and others (always the company: Coplien, Meyers, Murrai, Allison, Koenig and so on) show their usefulness: they make you ponder about those details you've missed but that are really important if you want to exploit the language as a good accustomed user does.
Why this book instead of some others of the same kind ? Simply because it's very clearly written and easily readable. I've had absolutely no difficulties in reading it, item after item. Meyers has a good and often entertaing writing style, and more important he very well knows the language. I'd say: one of the best source to improve your language knowledge from.
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Summary: Essential book for C++ developers
Review: My first contact with this book was in 1996 when I was charged with the responsability of writting the C++ coding standards for my company. I borrowed the first edition from a workmate and as soon as I started to read it I realized that a great deal of what I had to write was there, so the book became a reference for every C++ developer in my company. Contrary to some of my workmates opinion, it is not a book of tricks, what it contains are truly techniques that a C++ developer must master in order to be really effective. Whenever I interview a C++ candidate I always ask them questions related to contents from this book to make an assessment of the knowledge of the candidate. If you want to be a C++ world class developer this book has to be open on your table and full of post-it notes. From my point of view, this book together with James O. Coplien's Advanced C++ and the Gang of Four's Design Patterns are the trilogy that any C++ developer must read.
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