C++ Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach

by Bruce Sutherland

C++ A Problem-Solution Approach is a handy code cookbook reference guide that cover the latest C++ 14 as well as some of the code templates available in the latest Standard Template Library (STL). In this handy reference, you'll find numbers, strings, dates, times, classes, exceptions, streams, flows, pointers and more. Also, you'll see various code samples, templates for C++ algorithms, parallel processing, multithreading and numerical processes. These have many applications including game development, big data analytics, financial engineering and analysis, enterprise applications and more. A wealth of STL templates on function objects, adapters, allocators, and extensions are also available. This is a "must have", contemporary reference for your technical library.

488 pages, Paperback

First published March 17, 2015

Reviews

[Marshall · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a weird recipe book. Most programming recipe books provide generally useful code for common problems. This book is more like a C++ tutorial, focusing on code samples and using the problem-solution format, but twisting it to fit whatever the author wants to teach. It's as if he wrote a C++ book, and then the publisher demanded it be re-written in recipe format because that's what sells.

The examples are very contrived. When he wants to show off the Boost library, for example, he simply makes a problem: "You would like to write a program using the Boost library." Or, even more esoteric: "GPU power is limited, and you would like to give your objects a more highly detailed appearance." Or, "how to load Wavefront .obj files." When was the last time you ran up against that, and would you honestly reach for a recipe book for such a niche problem?

So, despite the title, this is not really a recipe book. If you're looking for C++ recipe book, this would be a lousy choice. It's also not very good for learning C++ for the first time, since it teaches with code samples. However, if you're like me, and you used to know C++ fairly well but forgot it, this is an excellent choice. Especially if you want to see the new C++ standards in action. This book is very much, shut-up-and-show-me-the-code. He doesn't explain much, but gives tons of examples. That's how I learn best.

The code is well-written, though repetitive. The explanations are not very enlightening. Usually they just walk through the code, and can sometimes get quite confusing, e.g.: "You can set up separate streams for the vertices and the texture coordinates in separate arrays, or you can set up a single stream that interleaves the vertex position and texture-coordinate data per vertex." Huh?