[lug] Good up-to-date C++ books

[Anthony Foiani]

[Again, catching up on months of posts...]

Carl Wagner <carl.wagner at verbalworld.com> writes:

> What would you recommend as a good book for learning current C++?

Depending on what you mean by "learning" and "current".  :)

"Learning":

  * What other programming languages (if any) do you already know?

  * What other programming tools (editors, IDEs, makefiles, etc)?

"Current":

  * What platforms are you developing for?  Which compilers?

  * What standard do you want to develop against?  (1998 is the latest
    "true" standard, with 2003 TR1 also being official; but there's a
    brand new standard coming out next year, most likely, and it has
    some very different -- and very nice! -- features... but they're
    not widely supported yet.)

  * What libraries do you intend to use?  Specifically, do you expect
    to be able to use Boost?  How about MFC / ATL, QT / GTK, etc?

Having said all that, I'm a big fan of:

1. Stroustrup "The C++ Programming Language" (either 3rd or "special" editions).

2. Josuttis "The C++ Standard Library"

3. Meyer's "Effective C++", 3rd ed (includes TR1 bits).  2nd ed is
   still valuable if you're coming from a traditional C background.

4. Meyer's "Effective STL"

That's pretty much it.  There are some excellent resources on the web,
and there are another few books that are worth reading at a library or
borrowing from a friend, but the four above are the ones that are on
my shelf.  :)

If you're completely new to programming, Bruce Eckel's
freely-available "Thinking in C++" is really nice; it's a bit dated
now, but it will teach you the basics.  That and many more links here:

  http://jcatki.no-ip.org/fncpp/Resources

Happy hacking,
t.