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The Art of C++ Review by Jay P
Of very limited value
I was disappointed with this book.
I had expected that it would be filled with examples of advanced C++ code, together with advice on how to use (and not use) specific language features. Instead, it is a collection of programs that often have little relation to the C++ language.
For instance, the financial calculation programs use hardly any C++ specific features; I'm looking at one right now that doesn't even use classes. They might as well have been written in C or some other non-object-oriented language. Also, the interpreter, the subject of the final section, interprets a subset of C++ that is so small that its features are a part of C, and again, the program itself (i.e. the interpreter) doesn't even use very many C++ specific features in its implementation. One learns nothing about C++ from these.
In addition, most of the code isn't very advanced. And even the programs that make use of C++ specific features don't shed much light on how one goes about using those features.
There are some sections on Windows-specific programming that might be of value to some programmers. In addition, the descriptions of some of the problems to be solved, such as garbage collection and multithreading, might be useful to someone who's just learning about them. (They are not, of course, treated in much depth; not being the subject of the book.)
On the plus side, the book is written in an easy-to-read style. And the text does help in understanding the programs.
The book is a collection of programs that happen to be written in C++ (or in many cases, nearly C). From these, many people could learn some un-connected facts about programming, but I don't think it does much of a job teaching the "art" of programming, in C++ or in general.