10-13-2018, 09:09 AM
Yes it is a bit slow to get into classes in my view, but I have found it to be the best foundational skills book I've read. Stroustrup is of course the God of C++ so naturally his book(s) is/are a goto, but I find them easier for people with a CS and previous coding background to read than total beginners.
Many of my 1st years students, are lost on the most basic of concepts, like variables, parameters, memory concepts.. And these are pretty much glossed over in a lot of C++ books.
The thing to remember is that the base knowledge of a new coder can be vastly different from our own and what we consider to be obvious and clear, isn't to many people.
So in my 1st classes with students, I try to break it down and show usage of concepts with as little assumption of prior knowledge as possible. Dawson does that well... I didn't do it as well in my book 'cos it would have meant adding a couple of chapters of just tutorial and I felt that was going to be too much.
But as I said tutorial books are very subjective, what I think is a good read, isn't going to appeal to every new coder. So long as they find a book they grasp the concepts with, they won't find anything in mine that is confusing, and hopefully will start to see the very real flaws of design I built into the projects which they can take some pride in fixing.
Many of my 1st years students, are lost on the most basic of concepts, like variables, parameters, memory concepts.. And these are pretty much glossed over in a lot of C++ books.
The thing to remember is that the base knowledge of a new coder can be vastly different from our own and what we consider to be obvious and clear, isn't to many people.
So in my 1st classes with students, I try to break it down and show usage of concepts with as little assumption of prior knowledge as possible. Dawson does that well... I didn't do it as well in my book 'cos it would have meant adding a couple of chapters of just tutorial and I felt that was going to be too much.
But as I said tutorial books are very subjective, what I think is a good read, isn't going to appeal to every new coder. So long as they find a book they grasp the concepts with, they won't find anything in mine that is confusing, and hopefully will start to see the very real flaws of design I built into the projects which they can take some pride in fixing.
Brian Beuken
Lecturer in Game Programming at Breda University of Applied Sciences.
Author of The Fundamentals of C/C++ Game Programming: Using Target-based Development on SBC's
Lecturer in Game Programming at Breda University of Applied Sciences.
Author of The Fundamentals of C/C++ Game Programming: Using Target-based Development on SBC's