Olivier Langlois's blog

I have read tons of C++ programming books. A lot of them lack of originality. This is where Tom Cargill book shines. The author of this book first presents a small C++ program listing for each chapter and then ask the readers to take few minutes to try to identify the errors or the aspects that could be improved. It is really instructive to find out all the things you have not identified yourself and this is what makes this format so interesting. Some people says that this book is for novice programmers but I disagree. To my opinion, almost all experienced programmers will miss at least half of the problems present in the sample programs.

10 years ago this book revolutionize the way programmers see object oriented programming. At that time, it was essential to read it. In fact, I remember that employers were testing candidate knowledge on design patterns at job interviews. Today, I consider this book as a classic that I would recommand to read for everyone that has just learned object oriented programming but it is less essential than it used to be as design patterns knowledge has spread in the litterature and you could even learn about them just by working on existing code. That being said, this book is still very valuable even for people that already know about patterns. I am on my second reading after many years of using the design patterns and I am picking up new insights that has escaped my attention at the first reading.

Following in the tradition of his prior books, Meyers delivers another gem with Effective STL. This one is a must have for your software development bookshelf. The only detail that annoys me a little bit is the amount of cross references between the items. The author first 2 books were a little bit like that but it seems to me that this one is too much. I would have preferred to have items more self contained. If you want to read a particular item, this one will refer to 2 other items that will refer to some more items and so on to the point where if you would like to close the open loop, you would need to consult almost all the items.

Except for this small annoyance, this book is very good. You should read it or have it.

It is a tutorial and a complete reference at the same time. I already knew very well STL when I have read this book but reading this book has been very enjoyable because I really appreciated its format. The tutorial and reference part are not clearly separated in 2. I hate books where you never read the reference part because it is as fun to read than reading a phone book.

Of course, the first part is strictly tutorial where it introduce STL, its basic principles and a quick overview of all the services provided by the library to the reader. Then lengthy chapters follow to cover containers and algorithms. This is where the book shines. It covers one by one each container and each algorithm and to support their description, a small sample program follows.

Before this book, there were some algorithms that I could not figure out exactly what was their purpose or how to use them correctly just from their description in the STL man pages. By reading the samples source code of this book, I had many 'AhAh' moments where finally I could understand some algorithms less frequently used. For all there reasons, I am very happy with my decision to get hold of this book.

Like every sequel, in my opinion, this book is less good than the original as if the topics covered in this book are the ones that did not make it into the original book. However that being said, this book is still very good and is just more of the same good stuff that made the original book a bestseller. If you liked Effective C++, there is not risk at all that you will not like this one and will get new knowledge out of it.