Deitel and Deitel Book...

[Dennis Roark]

Sheila King <usenet at thinkspot.net> wrote in
news:a5t3f9.3vsf871.1 at kserver.org: 
...
> In
> fact, I know some teachers who think that their book is practically
> the C++ gospel or something. I never had that high an opinion of their
> book. As I related, I didn't choose it for the text when I taught C++.
> I considered several other books, and ended up with the one by Walter
> Savitch. And while the narrative was very good in Savtich's book,
> there not enough good exercises and programming assignments for my
> high school students, and I was always having to search other books
> for that type of stuff...
> 

First books in C++ are mostly a dissappointing lot, surprisingly so.  
The Lippman and Lajoie and books by Bruce Eckel are good for students 
who have some familiarity with programming.  I've used the Savitch and 
Main and Savitch books, and a host of others searching for the "perfect 
book".  I've considered D&D, but I could never stomach its approach (not 
truly object oriented from the ground up) and conceptual errors or 
weaknesses (some mentioned in this thread).  There will probably be many 
grumbles with this suggestion, but the best I have found for the first 
introduction is Lafore, Object Oriented Programming in C++.  But I am 
really interested in weaving Python into the CS courses including the 
first year courses.  I am taking tentative steps in that direction this 
year and next.

-- 
Dennis Roark

denro at earthlink.net
Starting Points:
www.home.earthlink.net/~denro