Rating: 
Summary: Just what the doctor ordered
Review: Its a great beginners guide to C++.
Rating:
Summary: Heller's fantastic book on C++ has been a lifesaver!
Review: Steve Heller's fantastic book on C++ has been a lifesaver for a frustrated ex-musician turned corporate drone who, for reasons of economy and practically, has had to undertake the study of C++ from ground zero (and I mean right from the beginning, with no prior programming knowledge)on his own. Heller's writing style is lucid, simple, and free of murky bombast. His student, Susan, contributes excellent questions and dialogue. Her input has the effect of placing us in an imaginary classroom where the students can bounce ideas off the teacher and the teacher has to stay on his toes. The book is a lot of fun, but doesn't sacrifice the content to the gibberish of the "idiot and dummy" books. I found myself putting in many hours of contemplation and problem solving and am looking forward to more masochistic pleasure as I plow through the rest of the book. The bulk of my frustration came from having to deal with the compiler provided with the book, though I guess dealing with the compiler and learning to program go hand-in-hand.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent introduction to C++.
Review: The aim of the book is to introduce the C++ language to someone with no programming experience.C++ is sometimes a tough language to learn even for experienced programmers, so this was always going to be a tall order, but amazingly it succeeds.Where 'Learning to Program' differs from most beginner books on the same subject is that it doesn't aim to cover the whole language,just the fundamentals. You are not going to be able to write Quake 3 Arena after reading this book, but it is a great first step on the road to maybe achieving something like that someday.The important aspects of the language are explained very clearly, and the transcripts of conversations between Steve ( author ) and Susan ( student ) help to reinforce what you have learnt as you go along. The only fault with the book is arguably the layout.It reads very much like a novel, with the occasional black and white diagram included. Some splashes of colour and changes in page layout would have improved things even more. Overall though this is an outstanding introductory programming text.Highly recommended !
Rating: 
Summary: Not recommended
Review: The book's blurb reads "Master C++, No experience necessary." Indeed. I doubt that anyone will "master C++" by reading this book, but a determined reader might learn enough to code simple C++ programs. But, master? No way. This is a difficult book to review. It is written in such a "cutsie" way, with a poor index, a marginally useful glossary, and long drawn out explanations of topics that are usually covered with a definition that it is tiring to read. It has 989 pages of text and I made it to page 590 before giving up. I suspect other reviewers gave it a quick once-over and were done. The text is detailed in the extreme. Heller uses 13 pages (47-60) to explain the use of registers. Not the register keyword --- hardware registers. The title of this section is "Registering Relief." Get it? There are 17 pages taken to explain binary and hexadecimal encoding (30-47) with titles like "Odometer Trouble," "Back to the Future," "Over-Hexed." Get it? The problem with all this is that it is agonizing to read and almost impossible to find material from the table of contents or index. Suppose you decide to find out what the data types of this language are. Where would you look? There is no index entry for "char," "type," "data," "variable," "int," "short," "long," etc. Would you know to look at a section titled "A Cast of Characters" on page 93 (which has nothing to do with casting)? I couldn't find a table or chart of the data types either (nor a list of keywords). A surprise! "double" is in the index. The Glossary is the place for this information, however. Not the text. But it is scattered all over. Want to find out about pointer? Well, you can try. The index has dozens of entries listed for "pointer" but the first one tells you that it will be covered in Chapter 7, and the next three entries are actually to pages discussing the stack pointer. Nothing about pointer type or pointer arithmetic. Heller himself laments that standard library headers are not used. Too bad. Maybe next edition. Of course, no mention of namespaces, so that has to be added, too. Another disagreeable aspect is that the book has pages with the chapter name in the header and the book's title in the footer, but no mention of what chapter you are in. It's a trivial matter for the publisher to put the chapter number in the header with the title, but it's omission in this book just highlights the user unfriendliness of the layout, titling, indexing, etc. Hey! the Table of Contents is 27 pages! And the Index is marked "Forward" on each page. Very poor editing. The result is a book fit for a total novice, i.e. someone who knows nothing about programming, who has the patience to wade through extremely detailed and overly explained topics, identified by cryptic and supposedly humorous pun titles. A dedicated reader might come away with a beginner's understanding of how to code some C++, but far from mastery. It might be just the thing for some. Of course, it also has to be someone who hasn't heard of any other introductory books. ... Naturally, I couldn't use a book like this as text or reference for a course. A noble try, Steve, but I'd mark it "Not Recommended."
Rating: 
Summary: Some great stuff, but too wordy and annoying
Review: This book has both advantages and shortcoming. First of all, it's title says "Learning to Program in C++", not "Learning C++". In other words, the book is supposed to give you an idea of what programming is, and C++ is just a vehicle to achieve this goal. So if you are completely clueless of what programming is all about, you may find this book very helpful. If you want to learn C++, I'd suggest that you look for another book.
Some reviewers here criticized the author for giving too much attention to topics which seemingly have nothing to do with C++, such as hardware registers etc. In my opinion, this is an advantage of this book. In order to understand how to program, you have to understand how your computer work. This is essential.
But it is also true that it is way too wordy. Too much talking, too much chatting with Suzan. It does get annoying after a while. And then it becomes VERY annoying. It looks like Steve was writing under the delusion that the more word in an explanation, the clearer it becomes. This is incorrect. Definitions may be terse and still be very clear. Excessive wordiness only obfuscates what could be a good, clear explanation.
Rating:
Summary: Learning never came easier
Review: This book is one of the easiest C++ books to learn! It's not like those other books that sound like your talking to a computer itself. Yes it might be easy to learn but if you want to learn fast, this book is not for you. And if you don't like reading to much, this book is not for you either. When I first picked up this book I had only one thing in mind,"Hey wouldn't it be cool to program." I had no past experience at any type of programming, and I thought it was going to be like a flash that I would learn C++. Well it was easy to learn by the way Steve Heller wrote it, but I had to put some hard work into it. C++ isn't an easy programming language to learn but with this book you can master it!
Rating: 
Summary: Very Good
Review: This book is really for anyone who has no prior programming experience and wants to learn programming i myself had none. I had tried many other books but they weren't designed for someone with no previous programming experience ,i found them hard to follow and gave up around 100 pages or so. This is the only book that I have read that makes the language less complex each chapter I go through. I'm almost finished the book and I have to say it was worth the money. The only downside is sometimes the cutting between the text and Susan gets annoying in my opinion. All in all great book.
Rating:
Summary: Great book for beginners
Review: This is a rare book in that it actually helps to understand difficult programming concepts in a relatable manner. Steve Heller's idea of using using his interaction with a novice to teach the subject is unique in a C++ book. Whether one is a novice or somewhere between a novice and an intermediate level programmer, there's much understanding to be gained by reading this book while not letting hardwired opinions get in the way.
Rating:
Summary: Ever had an author answer your e-mail Question? Well I did!
Review: This is one of the best programming books I have read. I was in the middle of my second semester of C++ programming in college when I bought this book. I learned more from "Learning to Program in C++" than I did reading the required textbook for the course. Mr. Heller writes and explains things so that anyone can follow the logic. While reading this book I had a couple of questions that my instructor was not even clear on, so I sent Mr. Heller an e-mail. He wrote back an explanation in less than an hour. Then he followed up on my question to make sure I truly understood the process that he had clarified for me. I found this to be most impressive. I have never learned from a book where I was able to actually question the author, and have him respond to my question. What a great experience. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to get started in computer programming or needs to expand on what they already know about C++. Sincerely, G. Tripp
Rating:
Summary: To understand the basics start here. Fantastic book!!!
Review: This was an excellent book for C++ and programming fundamentals. I have been a software engineer for a large technology manufacturer for a few years. I have been programming for 4 years after leaving college. This book covers the foundations of computer science in such a way that you CANNOT NOT UNDERSTAND. These basics are absolutely critical to understand before you can really begin to hope to understand complex systems programming. I would recommend this book to anyone at any level looking to tighten up their skills. It is a great refresher for things I did in school and it is a great introduction for first time programmers. Sometimes the dialogue is heavy but only if you don't need it. If you need it, it is everywhere and it really helps you to understand the current topic better; Susan asks every question you can imagine. I would put this book in the hands of anybody. It is truly an idiot proof explanation to computers/software and the underlying architecture that supports both.
| 
