C

Effective STL: 50 Specific Ways to Improve Your Use of the Standard Template Library

Format: Paperback
Author: Scott Meyers
ReleaseDate: 06 June, 2001
Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional
Rating:

Converted a hard-core C programmer to the STL!
It gave me allot of good ideas and showed me how to things I didn't know how to before. I thought this book was great. But the real selling point was that I loaned it to a coworker who was a hard-core C programmer. He scoffed at C++ and OOP in general; making statements like "Everything I need to do can be done in C". After reading three items in the book he was questioning his thinking and trying new things. His latest project is not only in C++ but it's also embedded in the STL. He's taken quite a liking to it and has learned a lot of new things.

While I wouldn't recommend this book for a beginner, anyone that wants to further his or her understanding of the STL should read this book cover to cover.
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Standard Template Advice
Scott Meyer is one of the best writers on the subject of programming. This book will help you make better progamming decisons when it comes time to use the STL in a project. Here he shows you how to best use the Standard Template Library and avoid some of it's dangers. His examples are clear and help you better understand the rationale for his advice. His writing style is terse but pleasant.

This is not a tutorial on the STL, nor is it a comprehensive reference. You should already know the basics to get the most form Meyer's book. It does illustrate the best practices for using the STL.

Anyone using C++ should read this book and "Effective C++", too. The only problem with these books, is that you may feel like rewriting some of your existing code after reading them. I did.

good STL book
It does have some very good and useful advises and tips for dealing with various problems, and is not assuming the reader of it is too much of a entry level programmer. I bought this book in a hurry for the purpose of using STL functions for my programming project.

However, my biggest complaint of it is the print layout, including its font/size/color, the font is too heavy and dark (almost all Bold like) and make it harder to read through, especially some C++ code section which should definitely be printed in smaller, lighter and program code like style which is unfortunately not.