Effective Modern C++ Quick Review and Sale

For those of you familiar with Scott Meyers amazing Effective C++ and Effective STL (both of which I highly recommend to C++ programmers), Effective Modern C++ is now out which covers best practices for new features introduced in C++ 2011, as well as some upcoming features of C++ 2014.

For one more day only, you can also get $10 off any of the above links to Amazon if you use the code BOOKDEAL25 when you checkout (if your order totals $40 or more).

For those of you unfamiliar with the series, I'll provide you with a quick review.

Effective C++ is an excellent book for C++ beginners and experts alike. It helps beginners understand what is and how to choose the best tool for the job when C++ offers multiple ways of doing things. It can also help even experts to better understand how the language works, and what is and isn't good practice. You'll learn how to correctly navigate this large language, and end up writing programs where memory management or other resource issues are a thing of the past. You'll learn how to design programming interfaces that look sane, and you won't come back to them later asking yourself what drugs you were on when you originally wrote the code.

Effective STL dives more into the standard library of C++, helping the developer understand which container or algorithm is the best tool for the job, and how to use them most effectively. If you've ever wondered to yourself if you should use an std::vector or std::list, you need to read this book. If you've ever wondered what functors are or why bother with features which at first glance may seem like a roundabout way of doing things, you'll unlock the true potential of these features and more, and learn how what may seem weird to the untrained eye is actually powerful and produces better code.

Effective Modern C++ introduces the reader to new features added to the language in recent years, and as the other books in the series, helps them to better understand them, get the best out of them, and use them correctly. You'll learn how to choose and make the best out of the new resource management introduced with std::shared_ptr, std::unique_ptr, and std::weak_ptr, avoid common pitfalls with the new threading library, new functional programming techniques exposed in modern C++, as well as how to achieve even more optimization with all the new features.

The series also includes More Effective C++, however I do not recommend this book. Unlike the previously mentioned books, the latest edition of More Effective C++ came out before C++ was even standardized, and has been out of date for well over a decade. It does explain certain features of the language, most of which are still present today, but those features are best covered by an introduction to the language itself like The C++ Programming Language (hardcover), Principals and Practice Using C++, and The C++ Standard Library. One thing More Effective C++ covers that isn't in these great C++ learning and reference books is how to use C and C++ together effectively. Although in my opinion that's better covered in the more C focused book Expert C Programming: Deep C Secrets.

For those of you thinking to yourself that C++ is a horrible language, especially since it has so many books printed for it on how to correctly use it and get the best out of it, you might want to realize that most well established languages have such books. For example, Effective Java, Effective JavaScript, and the groundbreaking JavaScript: The Good Parts. Proper programming design is an art, and one could even go as far to say that if a book of this nature does not exist for a language, it's because no one has yet figured out how to really use it effectively.