Can anyone recomend a good intoduction to C...

[Alex Martelli]

"Grant Edwards" <grante at visi.com> wrote in message
news:77up6.1289$y6.235541 at ruti.visi.com...
    [snip]
> >To be completely honest, I can not see the obvius reason why
> >C++ should be such a bad programming language.
>
> It's complicated and unsafe.  Either one is tolerable without
> the other.  When you combine the two, you're dead.

Not necessarily.

> >It supports for a real large number of different design approaches.
>
> That isn't always a good thing. ;)

Let's say that being an excellent designer IS part of the
survival-necessary conditions for C++ (but that does extend
to C, for non-trivial applications)...:-).

Assuming an excellent designer, it IS a very good thing
that he or she can fully exercise his or her design flair.

"Multi-Paradigm DESIGN for C++", by Coplien, is a small
book, but well worth reading.  (As it happens, the breadth
of design approaches that Python affords isn't really any
narrower than those afforded by C++, so, while you surely
can survive without such excellent design skills in Python,
including ability to choose the ideal mixture of paradigms
and interfacing them seamlessly, having such skills is
anything but a waste -- it will let you do an insanely great
job rather than merely a superb one!-)


Alex