BKNCPOOD.RVW   980104

"Navigating C++ and Object-Oriented Design", Paul Anderson/Gail
Anderson, 1998, 0-13-532748-2, U$49.95/C$69.95
%A   Paul Anderson
%A   Gail Anderson
%C   One Lake St., Upper Saddle River, NJ   07458
%D   1998
%G   0-13-532748-2
%I   Prentice Hall
%O   U$49.95/C$69.95 201-236-7139 betsy_carey@prenhall.com
%P   823 p. + CD-ROM
%T   "Navigating C++ and Object-Oriented Design"

The authors admit to an ambitious intention.  They hope to provide a
tutorial, reference, and guide to advanced topics, all in one book. 
This aim is far reaching, and may even be self-contradictory.

The tutorial aspect is aided by a starting point in object-
orientation.  C++ is a computer language, like any other computer
language, and therefore the vocabulary and syntax is not going to
present a problem to any experienced programmer.  Object-orientation,
however, does seem to be a stumbling block to those (many) programmers
who come from the linear, procedural tradition that has dominated
programming up to the present.  The introduction of object modeling
technique, and object model notation, help lift the explanations out
of the usual "a dog is an animal" style of non-clarification. 
Unfortunately, it introduces too many concepts too quickly, generally
with only a single example of each.  Thus the concepts involved remain
difficult for the novice to extract.

This book *could* be used as a tutorial.  The reader would have to be
pretty determined, and definitely follow along with a C++ compiler up
onscreen for experimentation, but all the material *is* there.

The major emphasis of the text is object-orientation, to the point
that one could consider this a text on OOP (Object-Oriented
Programming) that happened to use C++ examples.  Much of the material
is advanced.  It would be difficult, however, to use the book as a
reference.

Chapters include the aforementioned introduction to object-
orientation, C++ basics, C++ structure, classes, working with classes,
overloading, class design, object storage management, template
functions, template classes, inheritance, run-time type
identification, exception handling, and multiple inheritance. 
Appendices look at the IOStream library, the Standard Template
Library, and C++ operator precedence.

copyright Robert M. Slade, 1998   BKNCPOOD.RVW   980104