Shtern V. Core C++ A Software Engineering Approach

New York: Prentice Hall PTR, 2000. — 1189 p.The main theme of Core C++ is the engineering of code that is both easily maintainable and reusable. In this book communication between the designer of the code and the maintainence programmer is considered significant; it is important that the designer’s knowledge is transferred to the maintainer.
This book addresses experienced programmers in languages other than C++ as well as novices learning C++ as a first programming language. If you know C++ reasonably well, but feel that maintaining your programs is harder than it should be, this book is for you, too.
One of the book’s pluses is Shtern’s step-by-step technique: he avoids "forwarding references" that would allow him to use constructs discussed later in the book. This is significant, since C++ is a complex language and not easy for a beginner to learn. Shtern’s approach makes life easier for the novice, allowing the reader to take one piece of the cake at a time and not have to deal with the whole cake at once. To give further guidance and orientation the book provides special hints variously entitled "notes," "alerts," and "tips." These hints help a reader figure out what’s really important among the vast amounts of information to remember, especially for programmers new to C++.
Shtern shows a considerable number of examples — and he doesn’t hesitate to present bad code, either. That is valuable, because you can only deal with "bad code" if you know what bad code is. Having presented the bad, Shtern then discusses better solutions. The rationale is that you’ll remember "good solutions" more easily if you know why they are preferable to other ways of accomplishing the same thing.