C++ Programming Language by Bjarne Stroustrup
I find using C++ more enjoyable than ever. C++’s support for design and programming has improved dramatically over the years, and lots of new helpful techniques have been developed for its use. However, C++ is not just fun. Ordinary practical programmers have achieved significant improvements in productivity, maintainability, flexibility, and quality in projects of just about any kind and scale.
By now, C++ has fulfilled most of the hopes I originally had for it, and also succeeded
at tasks I hadn’t even dreams of. This book introduces standard C++† and the key programming and design techniques supported by C++. Standard C++ is a far more powerful and polished language than the version of C++ introduced by the first edition of this book. New language features such as namespaces, exceptions, templates, and run-time type identification allow many techniques to be applied more directly than was possible before, and the standard library allows the programmer to start from a much higher level than the bare language.
About a third of the information in the second edition of this book came from the first. This third edition is the result of a rewrite of even larger magnitude. It offers something to even the most experienced C++ programmer; at the same time, this book is easier for the novice to approach than its predecessors were. The explosion of C++ use and the massive amount of experience accumulated as a result makes this possible. The definition of an extensive standard library makes a difference to the way C++ concepts can be presented.
As before, this book presents C++ independently of any particular implementation, and as before, the tutorial chapters present language constructs and concepts in a ‘‘bottom up’’ order so that a construct is used only after it has been defined. However, it is much easier to use a well designed library than it is to understand the details of its implementation. Therefore, the standard library can be used to provide realistic and interesting examples well before a reader can be assumed to understand its inner workings. The standard library itself is also a fertile source of programming examples and design techniques.
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