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Rating: 
Summary: A Great set of Guidelines from a Master
Review: Allen Holub's book should be on every C/C++ programmer's shelf.
He is a master of his craft and one of the few writers in the
field that is not afraid of being critical of the latest and
greatest fad. His experience comes from years of work in the
trenches and it shows. Ignore his guidelines at your own risk.
You may not agree with everything he writes (I didn't) but it's
all food for thought.
Rating:
Summary: Highly Useful; Precisely True; Beginners Please Read This!
Review: I'm a 11-year mostly C programmer and I AGREE WITH EVERYTHING IN THIS BOOK. I've been a consultant for 5 years - and fixed a lot of code. Beginner programmers should read this and follow it. Computer Science and MIS degrees focus on algorithm design and efficiency and theoretical programming. THIS IS NOT THEORETICAL - this is PRACTICAL. Please, people, write code that's easy to read for the idiot that will come after you; over 50% of the cost of a progam is MAINTENANCE and if you write a simple routine that takes twice as long to execute, OH Well, unless it's a visible delay, no one cares about efficiency. Use this book as a CORPORATE STYLE GUIDE FOR C & C++ PROGRAMMING. If you follow it and write easy-to-read programs, your employer will SAVE MONEY IN MAINTENANCE. I literally agreed with everything in this book - with one exception. He poo-poos working over 8 hours/day. I disagree. True, programming is creative work and you can burn out, but I find 10 or 12 hour days highly productive because people don't interrupt me, and I try to task switch enough to give myself breaks (or stare out the window blankly to do some subconcious-problem-solving). In Short - Buy This Book, or borrow it - and save your employers money by creating simpler programs. You'll look like a star by creating something even a junior programmer can modify easily. If you're an expert C or C++ programmer, it's very worth it, too - you get another perspective on ease-of-use. I changed my mind and now will consider using const (I had only used #defines to simplify things - he made a good argument that the compiler is better than the preprocessor at catching brainfarts). Also, If you can, give it to your manager. They need to know this stuff, too.
Rating: 
Summary: Why read this when there are more disciplined books?
Review: Imagine someone took the Ten Commandments and tossed in some of his own commandments, and published it; of course, it would have some GREAT parts, but it would lend authority to the author's additions which they don't deserve. Yes, he includes the venerable rules of programming style, as laid out by the classic authors, then tosses in some of his own that are self-indulgent and provincial. Good luck to a beginner trying to sort them out. Pulling rules out of thin air makes you an autocrat, not an authority. Get The Practice of Programming, Code Complete.
Rating:
Summary: Read Code Construction instead
Review: Read McConnell's "Code Construction" instead. Covers the same ground, but better, more informative, and less opinionated. Nothing wrong with opinionated. Just that Holub tends to present his views as the de-facto best practice when other views are just as valid or more valid. He tends to neglect any supporting reasons for his views. For instance, his section on tab stops ("40. Use four-space indents") presents the following reason logic: a) 1 space indents are unreadable and b) 4 space indents are ideal. That's it. What this book is, is a codification of Holub's prejudices regarding writing C & C++ code. I agree with most of them personally. In fact, he's the only coding style writer I've seen that agrees with me on some, but nevertheless this appears to be simply a vanity book in style and substance. McConnell's book is more thorough in style and substance, even if I think he's wrong in many cases.
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