Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!mcvax!hp4nl!philapd!ssp1!roelof
From: roelof@idca.tds.PHILIPS.nl (R. Vuurboom)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++
Subject: Re: C++ textbooks (was: C++ design)
Keywords: information
Message-ID: <137@ssp1.idca.tds.philips.nl>
Date: 19 Jun 89 10:24:07 GMT
References: <9474@alice.UUCP> <916@tukki.jyu.fi>
Organization: Philips Telecommunication and Data Systems, The Netherlands
Lines: 79

In article <916@tukki.jyu.fi> markku@jytko.jyu.fi (Markku Sakkinen) SAKKINEN@FINJYU.bitnet (alternative) writes:
>
>...
>>Wiener, Richard S., Pinson, Lewis J.: "An Introduction to Object-Oriented
>>	Programming and C++," Addison-Wesley, 1988.
>...
>
>Sorry, but I would not recommend this book.

I would. When I started along the C++ track I first started reading 
Stroustrups book and got confused. Backtracked to Wiener and Pierson
and found this easier going. I then returned to Stroustrup.

Wiener and Pierson gave (me) lucid answers to what was object-oriented 
about C++ and that relatively early on in the book.  
I think a lot of people start on C++ looking for answers to these questions 
as I did. 

The reason I got confused (and demotivated) when I started out on
Stroustrups book was not because it wasn't well structured or wasn't
well written but because it wasn't answering the questions I was
asking 

David Geary points this out also in a previous posting:

  I was suprised to find that BS does not extol upon the virtues of
OOP.  C++ seems to be presented more as simply a "better C".  BS
does show the benefits of OOP using C++, but they are scattered
throughout the book, and the idea of OOP is not consolidated.
For example, on page 213, we find:


Also the level of detail (although correct) is large for a beginner:

for example, the very first example,

#include <stream.h>

main()
{
	cout << "Hello, world\n";
}

carries the following explanation annotated with what I think my thoughts
were the _first_ time I read it.

The line #include <stream.h> instructs the compiler to _include_ the
declarations of the standard stream input and output facilities as
found in the file stream.h

[So we've got the preprocessor include keyword nothing new here...]

Without these declarations, the expression cout<<"Hello, world\n"
would make no sense.

[Huh? Is cout some sort of typedef exported by stream.h? No that can't
be. Must be a variable of some sort. But surely you're not _defining_
cout in stream.h? Better read further...]

The operator << ("put to"+) [Huh? put to what? Let me put this to you
Stroustrup thats a damned left shift] writes its second argument 
[I don't see any arguments] onto its first [??? how do you write an 
argument _onto_ another argument?] (in this case, the string "Hello, world\n" 
onto the standard output stream cout [I'm lost...The guys using a left
shift operator to do a printf and I thought C++ could do everything
C could do... so whats wrong with printfs? Suddenly out of fashion?
And this is the first example, so I guess it must be showing the power of
C++. Gee I can use a left shift to do a printf...]

Of course, now we all look back and laugh at this train of thought. :-) :-)
But it wasn't getting me any nearer to the answer of why C++ was so great.

When I went back to bs after reading W&P and knowing the answers to the
questions I wanted answering I could concentrate on the language _details_
which bs so well describes and not the language _issues_ to which bs does
too little justice.
-- 
Roelof Vuurboom  SSP/V3   Philips TDS Apeldoorn, The Netherlands   +31 55 432226
domain: roelof@idca.tds.philips.nl             uucp:  ...!mcvax!philapd!roelof