Beginner's literature recommendation?

[Richard B. Kreckel]

Hi!

I was recently asked what book to recommend for a beginner in C++. I
am convinced that you needn't study C in depth before learning C++
(though it helps), but cannot find any beginner's book which isn't
aimed at people coming from C/Pascal/Java/Delpi/whatever...

However, there seem to be plenty such books for all those other
languages. Is there really no literature for people trying to learn
programming by starting with C++? Honestly, I cannot recommend the
books by Stroustrup for a beginner. The only one that comes to my
mind is Koenig/Moo, but that appears to be somewhat too terse
(although I have only skimmed it).

Any good recommendation?

TIA
-richy.

 

[lilburne]

Hi!

I was recently asked what book to recommend for a beginner in C++. I
am convinced that you needn't study C in depth before learning C++
(though it helps), but cannot find any beginner's book which isn't
aimed at people coming from C/Pascal/Java/Delpi/whatever...

We program almost exclusively in C++ (there is some legacy
fortran) and from time to time take on people (Phd in maths)
with minimal programming experience in any language. We'd
recommend Meyers "Effective C++", a basic language tutorial
- they can always skip the first 60pp on the differences
between langX and C++, and mentoring.

 

[jeffc]

Hi!

I was recently asked what book to recommend for a beginner in C++. I
am convinced that you needn't study C in depth before learning C++
(though it helps), but cannot find any beginner's book which isn't
aimed at people coming from C/Pascal/Java/Delpi/whatever...

However, there seem to be plenty such books for all those other
languages. Is there really no literature for people trying to learn
programming by starting with C++? Honestly, I cannot recommend the
books by Stroustrup for a beginner. The only one that comes to my
mind is Koenig/Moo, but that appears to be somewhat too terse
(although I have only skimmed it).

Any good recommendation?

http://www.accu.org/bookreviews/public/reviews/0sb/beginner_s_c__.htm

 

[osmium]

I was recently asked what book to recommend for a beginner in C++. I
am convinced that you needn't study C in depth before learning C++
(though it helps), but cannot find any beginner's book which isn't
aimed at people coming from C/Pascal/Java/Delpi/whatever...

However, there seem to be plenty such books for all those other
languages. Is there really no literature for people trying to learn
programming by starting with C++? Honestly, I cannot recommend the
books by Stroustrup for a beginner. The only one that comes to my
mind is Koenig/Moo, but that appears to be somewhat too terse
(although I have only skimmed it).

Any good recommendation?

See what is on the shelves for Stepehen Parat or Robert LaFore. They are
both good writers of primer level stuff. Also look at Pohl and Ammeraal.

 

[osmium]

See what is on the shelves for Stepehen Parat or Robert LaFore.

Oops. Stephen Prata.

 

[Jon Bell]

I was recently asked what book to recommend for a beginner in C++. I
am convinced that you needn't study C in depth before learning C++
(though it helps), but cannot find any beginner's book which isn't
aimed at people coming from C/Pascal/Java/Delpi/whatever...

There are a number of textbooks intended for college/university level
courses in introductory programming using C++. If the person in question
has no programming experience in some other language, I'd investigate one
of those books. For what it's worth, i teach such a course using
Astrachan's "Computer Science Tapestry." It uses strings and vectors in
preference to char*'s and arrays, which I like. It was originally written
before the C++ standard appeared, so it uses its own vector class which is
basically a stripped-down version of the std::vector class, but so far
I've been able to substitute 'std::vector' for his 'tvector' everywhere
without any problem.