Download PDF C++ In Action Industrial Strength Programming Techniques

Sinopsis

The first part teaches C++, the language of choice for general-purpose programming. But it is not your usual C++ tutorial.

For the beginner who doesn't know much about C or C++, it just introduces a new object oriented language. It doesn't concentrate on syntax or grammar; it shows how to express certain ideas in C++. It is like teaching a foreign language by conversation rather than by memorizing words and grammatical rules (when I was teaching it to students, I called this part of the course "Conversational C++"). After all, this is what the programmer needs: to be able to express ideas in the form of a program written in a particular language. When I learn a foreign language, the first thing I want to know is how to say, "How much does it cost?" I don't need to learn the whole conjugation of the verb 'to cost' in the past, present and future tenses. I just want to be able to walk into a store in a foreign country and buy something.

For a C programmer who doesn't know much about C++ (other than that it's slow and cryptic--the popular myths in the C subculture) this is an exercise in unlearning C in order to effectively program in C++. Why should a C programmer unlearn C? Isn't C++ a superset of C? Unfortunately yes! The decision to make C++ compatible with C was a purely practical, marketing decision. And it worked! Instead of being a completely new product that would take decades to gain the market, it became "version 3.1" of C. This is both good and bad. It's good because backward C compatibility allowed C++, and some elements of object oriented programming, to quickly gain foothold in the programming community. It's bad because it doesn't require anybody to change his programming methodology.

Instead of having to rewrite the existing code all at once, many companies were, and still are, able to gradually phase C++ in. The usual path for such a phase-in is to introduce C++ as a 'stricter' C. In principle all C code could be recompiled as C++ . In practice, C++ has somewhat stricter type checking and the compiler is able to detect more bugs and issue more warnings. So recompiling C code using a C++ compiler is a way of cleaning up the existing code. The changes that have to be introduced into the source code at that stage are mostly bug fixes and stricter type enforcement. If the code was written in pre-ANSI C, the prototypes of all functions have to be generated. It is surprising how many bugs are detected during this ANSI-zation procedure. All this work is definitely worth the effort. A C compiler should only be used when a good C++ compiler is not available (really, a rare occurrence nowadays).

Once the C++ compiler becomes part of the programming environment, programmers sooner or later start learning new tricks and eventually they develop some kind of C++ programming methodology, either on their own or by reading various self-help books. This is where the bad news starts. There is a subset of C++ (I call it the C ghetto) where many ex-C-programmers live. A lot of C programmers start hating C++ after a glimpse of the C ghetto. They don't realize that C++ has as many good uses as misuses.

Content

1. Preface

2. Introduction

3. Language

4. Techniques

5. Windows Techniques

6. Software Project

7. Appendix

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