Programmer Musings

Review of Effective C++, Third Edition

Effective C++, Third Edition
Scott Meyers
Addison-Wesley, 2005

I was really excited when I found out that Scott Meyers was releasing a new edition of Effective C++. The first edition provided a major step on the path for many of us from writing code in C++ to actually programming in the language. What surprised me was the fact that this edition was a complete rewrite of the original. As Meyers puts it, the things that programmers needed to know fifteen years ago to be effective are not the same things we need to know now. Many of the items from the original are no longer new or different, they are the accepted ways to program in C++.

As always, Meyers provides practical advice and sound explanations of his reasoning. Meyers also has an extremely readable writing style that does not get boring after the first chapter. In the first edition, some of the advice went against standard practice of the day, but Meyers did such a good job of explaining his rationale that you had to consider his position. In the latest edition, I found less of his advice to be surprising, but every bit as important. Even though many others have explored some of this territory, I see lots of examples of programmers who violate many of these rules and later regret them. Like the earlier editions, Effective C++, third edition serves as a great description of best practices for C++. Furthermore, if you haven't seen these best practices before, or you were not convinced by seeing some of this elsewhere, Meyers will make a good attempt to convince you.

As with the earlier editions, each item covers a specific aspect of programming in C++ that you must be aware of in order to make effective use of the language. Although it would be possible to gain some of this information by carefully reading the standard reference works, it would be hard to beat the clarity and focus of this book.

One of my favorite items in the book is number 1 where Meyers describes the richness of C++ and some of the pain that comes from dealing with the different facets of this complex language. He suggests treating C++ more as a set of related languages than as a single entity. In the process, he manages to reduce some of the syntactic and semantic confusion by showing consistency within each sublanguage. I am not doing his description justice, you need to read Meyers' version to be properly enlightened.

Meyers does not just focus on usage of the C++ language, he also touches upon important idioms applying to the standard library. He also spends some time on classes expected to join the standard library in the near future, like the Technical Report 1 (TR1) extensions. He also suggests checking out the classes available on Boost.org as a way to see where the language is going.

Another point that impressed me about this book is the level of professionalism in the editing. Lately it seems that spelling and grammar errors have become the norm in technical books. Personally, I find these kinds of errors distracting. I found one typo in the entire book and only a couple of spots where I needed to reread the text to understand what Meyers meant. In today's environment of hundreds of computer books coming out in a year, it is particularly nice to see this kind of attention to detail.

If you program in C++, you need to read this book. Unlike you might have expected, it is not a simple rehash of the earlier editions. Instead it is more of a completely new book in the series. Novice programmers can learn the correct ways to use the language. Experienced programmers can gain better arguments for best practices they are trying to establish and insights into practices they may not be as familiar with.

I can't possibly recommend this book too highly.