Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!apple!voder!pyramid!hplabs!hpfcdc!hpfcdq!shrum
From: shrum@hpfcdq.HP.COM (Ken Shrum)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++
Subject: Re: Re: C++ design (actually: Textbooks)
Message-ID: <7950006@hpfcdq.HP.COM>
Date: 19 Jun 89 16:00:12 GMT
References: <1271@ethz.UUCP>
Organization: Hewlett-Packard - Fort Collins, CO
Lines: 46

> > Berry, John: "The Waite Group's C++ Programming"  [ ... ]
> > [ ... ]

> Can anybody out there provide further info on any of these books?

Yesterday I scanned through a copy of the above while at the bookstore.
I didn't go past page 100, didn't read it exhaustively, but instead just
looked for how well the book presented C++.

I found that the examples tended to have many typographical errors,
mostly misspelled variable names.  Variable and function names were
not referred to consistently (e.g. get_var versus get_variable).  The
examples also had some semantic errors (1 based arrays rather than
zero, off by one errors) and a few that were difficult to classify
(see below).  There was also a tendency to have confusing examples,
for instance:

    foo(int x, y)
    {
	int y;
	...
    }

and

    class new_foo
    {
	...
    };

    class foo : new_foo
    {
	new_foo(...)
    }

where foo::new_foo seems to be intended to be the constructor for foo.

In addition, the operators << and >> are described as being "new" to
C++ as compared to C, and are referred to in the index as the "output"
and "input" operators respectively.  No reference is given to these as
being the left and right shift operators.

The above is not intended to be an exhaustive review of the book, but
only reflects impressions gathered over half an hour.

    Ken Shrum