Programming and problem solving with C++ : brief ed

This book covers far too little material for its price and size. The examples demonstrate the theory well, but the situations they present are so farfetched it is unlikely the reader will ever encounter something seen as an example in this book. I really wish they would have showed me how to use the theory that I've learned in this book in practice, but they never even began to explain how C++ can actually be used to do something more than run calculations in mundane subjects such as calculating the interest on a loan (you could easily do that with a calculator or a table). To say the least, this lack of real applications for their subject in the book makes this book extremely boring to read, and very repetitive (especially when they use the exact same example several times in a row) There are also many CRUCIAL mistakes in the examples, and what's worse, they make mistakes a beginner would make. They may have been just typos, but in an example those errors could easily confuse readers into believing otherwise. I honestly think that I was following the theory better then they were, because I found the mistake quickly and fixed it. I was extremely dissapointed with this book. May I reccomend instead a book by Deitel? I haven't read their C++ books, but I found their C book to be very interesting and easy to read. In the tradition of Pascal and Turbo Pascal, authors Nell Dale and Chip Weems have teamed up with Mark Headington to offer Programming and Problem Solving with C++ for students in the CS1/C101 course. Written in the same style as the successful Pascal books, this text provides an accessible introduction to programming using C++ for beginning students. The first half of the text gives students a solid foundation in top-down programming techniques. The second half builds on this foundation and explains ADTs, the C++ class, encapsulation, information hiding, and object-oriented software development.