Is my C++ book outdated?

[Srdja123]

Hi,

Im thinking about learning C++ and I have this book called:" C++
programming 3:e edition" by Stephen Prata from 2001 and I was
wondering, is that book outdated? These books are kind of expensive so
will I be "misinforme d" by reading this book and learning from that or
is it recommended to buy a new one?

Thx!

[Victor Bazarov]

Sr******@gmail. com wrote:

On Jan 7, 8:40 pm, "Mike Wahler" <mkwah...@mkwah ler.netwrote:

>[..]
Finally, I recommend you don't limit yourself to a single text.

-Mike

The idea is not to limit myself to a singe text, I want to start
somewhere and I was just wondering if it would be bad to read an
"outdated book"?

It might be OK if you know it's a bit outdated. The "primer"
series deal with very basic things that don't really change much
over the years. If you can get it very inexpensively, do get it
just so you can start. If you have to choose what to get, I'd
probably turn my sights to something more up to date.

V
--
Please remove capital 'A's when replying by e-mail
I do not respond to top-posted replies, please don't ask

[Srdja123]

On Jan 7, 8:50 pm, "Victor Bazarov" <v.Abaza...@com Acast.netwrote:

Srdja...@gmail. com wrote:

On Jan 7, 8:40 pm, "Mike Wahler" <mkwah...@mkwah ler.netwrote:

[..]
Finally, I recommend you don't limit yourself to a single text.

-Mike

The idea is not to limit myself to a singe text, I want to start
somewhere and I was just wondering if it would be bad to read an
"outdated book"?

It might be OK if you know it's a bit outdated. The "primer"
series deal with very basic things that don't really change much
over the years. If you can get it very inexpensively, do get it
just so you can start. If you have to choose what to get, I'd
probably turn my sights to something more up to date.

V
--
Please remove capital 'A's when replying by e-mail
I do not respond to top-posted replies, please don't ask

Now Im thinking about to buy the 5:e edition, but the thing is I now
see that it has been written in 2005.. Oh well, Ill buy it anway..

Thx for all the tips everyone!

[James Kanze]

On Jan 7, 8:48 pm, "Victor Bazarov" <v.Abaza...@com Acast.netwrote:

Srdja...@gmail. com wrote:
That looks like the translation of "C++ Primer Plus", 3rd edition,
at least the cover looks very similar.

http://www.amazon.com/Waite-Groups-P.../1571691626/re...

If so, yes, it's outdated. I'd try to get the 5th (latest)
edition in English (unless somebody already translated it to
Swedish, if it is the language you prefer).

Be very careful about translations. At least in France (and
from what I remember of Germany), the translations are generally
done by someone who doesn't know the subject matter that well,
and results are often misleading.

For better or for worse, if you're going to work in computer
science, and keep yourself up to date, you're going to have to
learn to read English fluently.

(I wonder if the same thing holds in reverse. I've recently
read a really excellent book by Haralambous about Unicode. I
read the original, in French; I wonder if the English
translation will suffer from the problems we usually see in
French translations from English.)

--
James Kanze (GABI Software) email:ja******* **@gmail.com
Conseils en informatique orientée objet/
Beratung in objektorientier ter Datenverarbeitu ng
9 place Sémard, 78210 St.-Cyr-l'École, France, [phone]

[Pete Becker]

On 2008-01-08 05:38:37 -0500, James Kanze <ja*********@gm ail.comsaid:

Be very careful about translations. At least in France (and
from what I remember of Germany), the translations are generally
done by someone who doesn't know the subject matter that well,
and results are often misleading.

On the other hand, when my book was translated into Chinese, the
translator asked perceptive questions, and found a couple of errors.

--
Pete
Roundhouse Consulting, Ltd. (www.versatilecoding.com) Author of "The
Standard C++ Library Extensions: a Tutorial and Reference
(www.petebecker.com/tr1book)

[=?UTF-8?B?RXJpayBXaWtzdHLDtm0=?=]

On 2008-01-07 21:07, Sr******@gmail. com wrote:

On Jan 7, 8:50 pm, "Victor Bazarov" <v.Abaza...@com Acast.netwrote:

>Srdja...@gmail .com wrote:

On Jan 7, 8:40 pm, "Mike Wahler" <mkwah...@mkwah ler.netwrote:
[..]
Finally, I recommend you don't limit yourself to a single text.

>-Mike

The idea is not to limit myself to a singe text, I want to start
somewhere and I was just wondering if it would be bad to read an
"outdated book"?

It might be OK if you know it's a bit outdated. The "primer"
series deal with very basic things that don't really change much
over the years. If you can get it very inexpensively, do get it
just so you can start. If you have to choose what to get, I'd
probably turn my sights to something more up to date.

Please do not quote signatures.

Now Im thinking about to buy the 5:e edition, but the thing is I now
see that it has been written in 2005.. Oh well, Ill buy it anway..

2005 is good, the latest version of the C++ standard is from 2003 and I
do not think any major breakthroughs have been made in the way we use
C++ since then.

--
Erik Wikström

[James Kanze]

On Jan 8, 2:27 pm, Pete Becker <p...@versatile coding.comwrote :

On 2008-01-08 05:38:37 -0500, James Kanze <james.ka...@gm ail.comsaid:

Be very careful about translations. At least in France (and
from what I remember of Germany), the translations are generally
done by someone who doesn't know the subject matter that well,
and results are often misleading.

On the other hand, when my book was translated into Chinese, the
translator asked perceptive questions, and found a couple of errors.

That can happen as well. Judging from the quality of the
translations in French that I've seen, however, it's rather an
exception.

FWIW: technical translation is typically paid on a fixed rate
basis, so much a word, or perhaps an established price for the
entire book. And it isn't very well paid---a technical
translator has to translate a lot to earn a decent income. Most
of the people doing technical translations are competent enough
that they could understand the text, if they took the time to
study it in detail (and for more advanced texts, like yours,
probably to learn C++ first). The problem is that if they took
that time, they'd no longer make enough to pay the rent.

In some cases, the editor will employ a competent C++
programmer, rather than a translator, to do the translation.
(In many countries, for example, university professors make
little enough that they don't mind augmenting their income on
the side.) This is probably preferable, although I've met more
than a few "C++ experts" in France whose writing skills in
French weren't all that good.

Many authors are concerned about the quality of the translations
of their works as well---I know that Stroustrup pays close
attention to this. If they know the target language well
enough, they will verify the translation, and the results should
be OK. I can't judge myself, but I'm willing to bet that the
translations of Stroustrup into Danish are excellent.

--
James Kanze (GABI Software) email:ja******* **@gmail.com
Conseils en informatique orientée objet/
Beratung in objektorientier ter Datenverarbeitu ng
9 place Sémard, 78210 St.-Cyr-l'École, France, [phone]