C++ Crash Course: A Fast-Paced Introduction

Physically, the book was lightly worn, but the content is clear and brilliant. It’s an accessible tutorial on modern C++ - perfect to update this crusty old 20th century C++ hacker.

On the book's web site (found at ccc "dot" codes) it says the following: "C++ Crash Course is a fast-paced, thorough introduction to Modern C++ for experienced programmers." And that is exactly right. If you are already comfortable in at least one other language, know your way around an IDE, compiler, linker, etc., and need to get up to speed in current C++, then you will really like this book. If you are coming from C, you will love it. I'm an engineer, and have been writing software for decades in several languages. Long ago ('90's) I even wrote some things in C++. But a lot has changed, and I was looking for something to bring me up to date on the language today. This book fit the bill perfectly. Also, the book's web site has source code for examples & exercise solutions, (also on git) and best of all a very thorough Errata. Amazon sent me a second printing, which is nice because a lot of typos were fixed in the second printing. But if you have a 1st printing - no worries. Just print out the errata and get out your pencil!

I'm a self-taught, beginner developer, with minor projects done for friends and family (I mean, no money involved haha). As a passionate man, I wanted a book that wasn't plain theory and allowed me to learn while having fun, as I find intellectual challenges very appealing. This book was it. It explains concepts, with examples everywhere and then it's just "now you". It encourages you to practice, to make "real-world" programs piece by piece until it works as expected. It makes you think until you laugh because you understood how flexible C++ is and how easy...it's just great. It's an incredible language and a great book. Part I takes you through C++ fundamentals. Beware that it's not an introductory book as it assumes you already know some fundamental stuff (for example, what an object is). Rather, it shows you the language specification and features with nice examples. Part II is dedicated to libraries and frameworks and the way you can use them to enhance your code.

I think it's good fast-paced intro to modern C++ for experienced programmers. The book is definitely missing some details: e.g. thread life cycle, streams, etc. Given the online resources, the book is too bloated (4 stars) --- I'm an experienced programmer with no prior modern C++ experience. I have coded C++ 98 in school, so I have had some exposure to C++ concepts. I thought Deitel was superb then. I've tried Bjarne Stroustrup classical opus, but I have little patience for the amount of detail on each topic; best left for reference?

I purchased a paper copy of this book on Amazon after reading a few chapters on Safari books online. For context, I am a professional python programmer who was only briefly exposed to C/C++ many years ago in school. I needed a quick refresher to C++ because of project needs at work, and this book has met my expectations. The author is lying about the "fast-paced introduction" bit, but that is not a bad thing. This book is twice as large as "Accelerated C++" by Koenig and Moo which I am also reading in parallel. Yet I prefer this book by a wide margin. Josh's writing is quite reader-friendly. He takes a storytelling approach and doesn't dive too deep into committee standards or history. That way the concepts are easier to remember and follow a nice logical sequence. Code examples all make sense and there are no errors so far - I've been compiling everything with Xcode and playing around a bit. Only thing I do not like is the margins in the print copy. There is no space on the right hand side to take notes, and you have to strain the binding hard to read the end of sentences on the left hand side. This might compromise the integrity of binding soon. In retrospect I should have kept reading on Safari.

I started to teach myself C++ using Stroustrup's Programming: Practice and Principle's, but only got through about half of it, skipping the GUI portion. C++ crash course is a much more focused look into the language. The examples are much smaller minimum working versions, rather than giant projects that tend to hide the new concept being introduced. As a result, it's a great book to teach the language, but not to teach programming from scratch. You need to have some experience to know how the tools can solve a particular problem. I'm only 1/3 of the way through, but so far I like the layout. It starts out with the bare langauge features, and doesn't get into the standard library until the second half of the book. This really helps to appreciate the benefits libraries provide.

I am not smart enough to say I can blow through this book in short order, but I really appreciate the perfect balance of treatment. I have sampled a number of books on this topic and they all suffer some limitations, this one is my favorite so far. I am not a beginner programmer, but not a C++ programmer, and I need this to write the low level high performant code I need for my interest space. I plan to read some other books on high performance and Data Oriented programming, but this book is a great launching pad of the fundamentals. Two thumbs up, take your time to distill the gems in this book. The only detraction is the Title "Crash" probably is not not in any way appropriate, this is just a great book on C++ period. My sincere thanks to the author, God bless!

Great for developers with some experience in any other compiled language (eg. C, Go, Java, Rust, etc). Just enough content on each topic to make you effective without overwhelming. Lots of modern idiomatic advice. The more I read, the more impressed I am.