Barton and Nackman's Scientific and Engineering C++

[Ish Aden]

Hi

I would like some advice on Barton and Nackman's Scientific and
Engineering C++. Is it worth purchasing for serious study of
C++/Advanced C++ as applied to that particular domain (Science and
Engineering) seeing as its publication date is 19994. I shy away from
books that are pre-1999.

Thx in advance

Ish

 

[Victor Bazarov]

I would like some advice on Barton and Nackman's Scientific and
Engineering C++. Is it worth purchasing for serious study of
C++/Advanced C++ as applied to that particular domain (Science and
Engineering) seeing as its publication date is 19994. I shy away from
books that are pre-1999.

I have a copy. I've had it for a while. I would probably agree that
you should get a copy for 10 or 15 % of the original value and only
for the sake of chapters 15 and 19 (LAPACK and some other common math
modeling methods implementations). The rest you can safely skip or
get from another (newer) book. As for the quality of the code it has,
I don't remember. I am used to takign any code in any book with often
a grain/pinch/handful of salt. They all contain typos or bugs.

V

 

[James Kanze]

I would like some advice on Barton and Nackman's Scientific and
Engineering C++. Is it worth purchasing for serious study of
C++/Advanced C++ as applied to that particular domain (Science and
Engineering) seeing as its publication date is 19994. I shy away from
books that are pre-1999.

It's definitely worth getting. Obviously, some of the details
are out of date (no namespaces, no two phased look-up in
templates). But that's not really what the book is about. It
was, and still is, one of the best books about how to design C++
class hierarchies, particularly when performance may be an
issue, and it is still one of the few books which thoroughly
discuss the trade offs between templates and inheritance, and
explains how to use both. I would consider it essential reading
for any serious C++ programmer (even if they aren't doing
scientific or engineering programming).

 

[Ish Aden]

Thanks, Victor and thanks, James. I'll definitely be getting the book now.

Ish