C : The Complete Reference, 4th Edition
Description:
Best-selling genius Herb Schildt covers everything from keywords, syntax, and libraries, to advanced features such as overloading, inheritance, virtual functions, namespaces, templates, and RTTI--plus, a complete description of the Standard Template Library (STL).User review
Awesome Reference
This is an awesome reference book, I have several of Schildt's books, and I would recommend them to anyone in programming. It's great if you're just starting out with the language, or if you're an experienced programmer looking for a reference for the language.
User review
Worst C++ book in my library
I have many C++ books in my library but I stopped using this one years ago. It rarely gives me the info that I need and I always find myself switching to another book to find what I need. At this point, this book simply collects dust on my shelf. I think it is about time to recycle it.
User review
Excellence in C++
As the title says, this is a complete C++ book. And very well written, with explanations of easy understanding. I recommend this Herbert Schildt's `The Complete Reference C++`, as well as `C++ A Beginners's Guide` by the same author. Both of diary reference for me.
User review
Great book!
I bought this book quite some time back. I learned C++ at the age of 12, and this was an incredible help in learning C++ during my teenage years! I'm now 24 and always remember this book in particular as an aide in learning C++.
User review
Not complete, but a large reference
I would give the book 3.5 stars, but we live in a world of integer stars so there goes a four star.
This is a fairly good tutorial for C++, and it does also a fairly good job as a reference. Nevertheless it absolutely fails to be a complete reference.
1. One *very important* weekness I see in this book is its utter lack of explanation on the compiler options, and how to link programs. It simply does not even mention how to create your own header files, or link libraries. This is unforgivable for a book that claims to be a complete reference.
2. The repetition of the descriptions of STL libraries like vector, string and maps is completely unnecessary. In my opinion it would be much more efficient to first introduce in depth the concepts of the STL which are hardest to chew for beginners (i.e. iterators, containers, allocators, function objects, adaptors and binders) and then describe the container classes sequentially instead of scattering descriptions over chapters 24 to 38. Furthermore, the behavior of many members of the STL libraries are exactly the same (i.e. put_back() will do the same regardless of the container), synthesizing those common features in the introduction of the STL would be extremely beneficial and it would save at least 150 pages of this book.
3. There is no mention in the book of important vanguard topics like using the BOOST library or how to include graphics libraries.
4. No mention on how to embed code, except for how to use the keyword extern in one short paragraph.
5. It would be nice if the book dedicated at least one chapter to good coding practices to improve readability (i.e. how to organize classes, aligning text in definitions, aligning parameters in functions, etc.).
6. It would be very useful to have at least one chapter on multithreading and parallel computing in C++ as they are very important for complex applications and scientific computing, especially when time consuming computations are involved.
In summary, I believe the name of the book should be `The complete Beginner's Reference` and restructure all chapters after number 24. The book is still a good starting point to learn C++, and even to use it as a good reference, but it would be really good to include some new topics in it.
