Book review: C++17 Quick Syntax Reference: A Pocket Guide to the Language, APIs and Library

I work on a day-to-day basis on a big project that has many developers with different C++ level. Scott Meyers wrote a wonderful book on modern C++ (that I still need to review one day, especially since there is a new Effective Modern C++), but it is not for beginners. So I’m looking for that rare book with modern C++ and an explanation of good practices.

Discussion

Let’s cut to the chase right away. It’s not this book. This book is bad. Very bad. So at the core, it’s supposed to be about the syntax, but even if it was about the syntax, you can still teach the good approach, can’t you?

A few examples. Templates are tackled in one of the last chapter, and so are classes. Then, the book starts almost from the beginning to tell people to use using namespace std. Is there anything more to add?

Yes, there is. New and delete are tackled, then the array version is done very much further, and I’m not even talking about smart pointers. They are addressed, but so far that people think it is still good to start by not using them. Yes, talk about new/delete, but RIGHT AWAY, say that they should use std::unique_ptr, std::shared_ptr and the make_* version. It’s supposed to be about C++17, and in C++17, we avoid new/delete. OK, it is mentioned, but 2 lines after several chapters of bad practices.

For range loops. They are introduced badly as well. for(auto&i: l) std::cout << i << std::endl; Why? Why the &? Why can’t you explain the purpose of this instead of waiting additional chapters and not even talking about when you use pass by value, pass by ref or pass by const ref?

I’m still trying to figure out why it is supposed to be a syntax book, but still the author tackles smart pointers. And tuples. Why not the rest of the standard library?

A good C++ book should start by presenting templates as soon as possible, the standard library and the good practices. Yes, it’s tough, but that’s why not everyone should write a C++ book.

Conclusion

The book is supposed to be about the syntax. But it lacks the good practices, with no reference to the C++ core guidelines. In the end, you still need to read another book to learn Modern C++ (hint…).

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