Rating: 
Summary: highly recommended guided tour of the C++ language
Review: "Essential C++" conveys the essence of C++ in a very readable 200 pages. I was already familiar with much of the basic material but the review/reinforcement was helpful and I learned many new things about some relatively recent C++ features such as the standard template library, generic programming, function objects, templates and exceptions.This book takes a hands on approach, developing code fragments to illustrate the topics by example. It's very well organized with each chapter building on material from previous chapters. Lippman's writing is simple and straightforward with a touch of good humor. All in all a rarity - a technical book about computer programming that is well organized, full of useful information and fun to read.
Rating:
Summary: Nice book for beginner
Review: Actually,if you are pure newbie,this book is not suitable for you.If you are person who have learnt some basic knowledge of C++,and wanna brush up yourself rapidly,so this book is written for you.
Rating:
Summary: Useful for experienced Java Programmers looking at C++
Review: As another reviewer mentioned, Lippman's _Essential C++_ is influenced by the approach taken in _Learning Perl_ (Schwartz). _Essential C++_ isn't quite a slow, measured introduction to C++ that gradually ramps up from step zero. Instead, this book is most useful for someone who already has moderate to good experience in another OOP language such as Java. Lippman starts laying on the essentials of C++ right away: a (very) quick overview of C/C++ syntax, templates, introductory file I/O, pointer math, iterators, STL containers... I started reading _Essential C++_ as an experienced C programmer who'd been doing Java for the past few years and needed a intro/refresher to C++, and I found this book to be very useful in learning the patterns in C++ that correspond to OO mechanisms in Java. (I'm a Java hack used to the Collection API, so the chapter on STL containers quite adequately answered the "what do I do for a HashMap?" question that popped up.) This certainly isn't a comprehensive C++ reference, and novices to programming are most likely not well served by this book, but I think _Essential C++_ is a great way for the experienced OOPer (but maybe not C++ guru) to dive in at the middling depth part of the C++ pool and start picking up the important idioms of the language in a short number of pages. Concise but in-depth. Thirty four bucks well-spent.
Rating:
Summary: Useful for experienced Java Programmers looking at C++
Review: As another reviewer mentioned, Lippman's _Essential C++_ is influenced by the approach taken in _Learning Perl_ (Schwartz). _Essential C++_ isn't quite a slow, measured introduction to C++ that gradually ramps up from step zero. Instead, this book is most useful for someone who already has moderate to good experience in another OOP language such as Java. Lippman starts laying on the essentials of C++ right away: a (very) quick overview of C/C++ syntax, templates, introductory file I/O, pointer math, iterators, STL containers... I started reading _Essential C++_ as an experienced C programmer who'd been doing Java for the past few years and needed a intro/refresher to C++, and I found this book to be very useful in learning the patterns in C++ that correspond to OO mechanisms in Java. (I'm a Java hack used to the Collection API, so the chapter on STL containers quite adequately answered the "what do I do for a HashMap?" question that popped up.) This certainly isn't a comprehensive C++ reference, and novices to programming are most likely not well served by this book, but I think _Essential C++_ is a great way for the experienced OOPer (but maybe not C++ guru) to dive in at the middling depth part of the C++ pool and start picking up the important idioms of the language in a short number of pages. Concise but in-depth. Thirty four bucks well-spent.
Rating: 
Summary: Surely the worst so far of all C++ books
Review: Essential C++ confronts its readers with a stream of silly examples, grotesquely misguided coding practices, opaque writing, and just plain errors. This book has no redeeming qualities and is appropriate for no audience. For a coherent treatment of a C++ subset see Gregory Satir's "C++ The Core Language" (O'Reilly ISBN 1-56592-116-X)
Rating:
Summary: At last!
Review: Finally we have a short, concise introduction to C++. As Stan himself mentioned, it follows the "Learning Perl" approach. Thus this book is not meant to be an exhaustive treatise of the language, but should give a working programmer a chance to start using this complex language. It takes the Perl approach in saying: use as much as you feel comfortable with to start, and as your knowledge progresses expend on your technique. I have seen some complains about number of errors in this book. For an errata please go to http://www.develop.com/hp/slip/Errata_1st.pdf. Also http://www.develop.com/hp/slip/windows.zip contains the source code for this book. In short (literally) we have a great book, which does a great job introducing C++ and at the same time, it is small enough to be carried around. I highly recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: At last!
Review: Finally we have a short, concise introduction to C++. As Stan himself mentioned, it follows the "Learning Perl" approach. Thus this book is not meant to be an exhaustive treatise of the language, but should give a working programmer a chance to start using this complex language. It takes the Perl approach in saying: use as much as you feel comfortable with to start, and as your knowledge progresses expend on your technique. I have seen some complains about number of errors in this book. For an errata please go to http://www.develop.com/hp/slip/Errata_1st.pdf. Also http://www.develop.com/hp/slip/windows.zip contains the source code for this book. In short (literally) we have a great book, which does a great job introducing C++ and at the same time, it is small enough to be carried around. I highly recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: A Very Good Value!
Review: For those of us who tried to fight our way through a C++ "encyclopedia" just to give it up overwhelmed by the material, this book is a very practical alternative. It is really possible with reasonable effort to read the book from cover to cover and work out all exercises. The C++ concepts are cleverly presented around the examples and exercises.
Rating:
Summary: Very good
Review: I am an advanced C programmer and wanted to learn object oriented
programming. Aside from the first 2 chapters (which are elementary), i found the remaining chapters to be awesome. Each chapter is TO THE POINT and does not waste a single word.
I highly recomend this book to people who already know programming and want a QUICK yet relatively COMPLETE introduction to c++. Good job Mr. Lippman!
Rating: 
Summary: Overall Good but a few typos
Review: I have found this book to be organized and very consise but there are a few typos in the book. I'm used to seeing errors in the technical books ( from C, C++, Perl ) but that's not good excuse. Please be aware of typos. If you want to really learn C++, get his other book "C++ Primer"
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