Re: [openvrml-develop] Fw: Looking for Conceptual Info

[Braden M. <br...@en...>]

On Thu, 2008-07-31 at 07:28 -0700, rte...@ya... wrote:
> Braden,
> Thanks for the quick reply and the focus you've provided. I am not "faint hearted" when it comes to trying new things, viz. C++; as  long as I make consistent progress.               Could you please recommend the hard copy texts on C++ that you've found helpful? Also I often find suggestions that programmers should have  good "design patterns" texts.  Any thoughts/recommendations on this?

"Accelerated C++", by Koenig & Moo, gets recommended a lot as an
introductory text by persons whose opinions I respect. I haven't read it
myself, though. (Unfortunately for me there wasn't a book that filled
this niche back when I started learning this stuff.)

The two references you'll really need are Stroustrup's "The C++
Programming Language" and Josuttis' "The C++ Standard Library". Another
good reference is Vandevoorde & Josuttis' "C++ Templates". Langer &
Kreft's IOStreams book is good, too; but unnecessary unless you're doing
significant work with IOStreams.

Once you've worked through "Accelerated C++", I'd recommend Scott
Meyers' "Effective C++". His other two books, "More Effective C++" and
"Effective STL" are good, too; though the former hasn't been updated in
a while and is probably a little dated in parts.

>From there, you can move on to Herb Sutter's books: "Exceptional C++",
"More Exceptional C++", and "Exceptional C++ Style". And somewhere along
the way at this point you might want to pick up Alexandrescu's "Modern
C++ Design".

For design patterns, I don't have a recommendation other than the
canonical "Gang of Four" book, "Design Patterns". It's old; but it
really is a classic. You'll find some elements of design pattern
application in the Meyers and Sutter books (as a by-product of the fact
that they teach, for the most part, useful idioms).

> It will be slow going for a while because I'll be teaching myself the language while going through your work. (I've some Java and C experience, but C is not C++).
> I'll keep my posts on list unless someone tells me otherwise,

Your Java and C experience will help--at least the syntax shouldn't be
totally alien. Again, best of luck.

-- 
Braden McDaniel                           e-mail: <br...@en...>
<http://endoframe.com>                    Jabber: <br...@ja...>