I have to say that this turned into a strange journey for me. There are a few modern C/C++ Developers I read, follow, watch, and generally dig. I had heard some hushed chatter about a newish book release by Pearson Addison- Wesley called ‘Embracing Modern C++ Safely’ a collaboration work written by a bunch of Bloomberg development veterans – John Lakos, Vittorio Romeo, Rostislav Khlebnikov, and Alisdair Meredith.
In a world of online resources, Stack Overflow based search and find answers, and electronic books – I find that for the truly good stuff- I want a real honest to goodness book on my shelves. Whether for reference, deep thinking, or random inspiration the good books have a way of capturing my imagination in a way that nothing electronic has been able to do. (Well maybe except my two paged VI editing command quick reference sheet – which was electronic to start, but I printed it out over 30 years ago and laminated it but that has less to do with imagination and more to do with remembering the quick keyboard commands).
Anyway with the low key but exciting hype around this book I went ahead and ordered a copy from Amazon. It recommended a seller who had the best delivery time and so I threw my electronic bits at it and eager awaited its arrival. I waited and waited and … waited. I finally got a notice from Amazon that the seller no longer had any copies and they refunded my money. No problem, I ordered it again…. and waited and waited. Same thing. This was perplexing to me as I could not imagine a book on C++ (and even more bizarrely on C++11/14…not the latest C++17/20) would be a huge draw for most folks. So l did it once more. Luckily for me, the third time was the charm and the book arrived safe and sound.
I eagerly dove into the book and was pleasantly surprised – no – incredibly pleased by the layout and approach to the topics in this book. For those of a certain age and remember the general straightforward and reference approach of the old Programming language “Bibles” this will feel right at home. In many ways it transported me back to that time. With topics laid out in a straight forward fashion and great amount of detail on the evolution of C++ as it has matured and evolved, what pitfalls to look out for, thoughts on standardization and approach, and it does all of this in an easy to follow modular way perfect for quick referencing later.
Perhaps what I loved best about the book was that it treated its reader like a professional. This wasn’t a C++ for dummies book trying to explain the basics, this volume assumed you had an adequate background as a developer and were looking for force multipliers and the ability to navigate topics quickly. It is extremely well done.
While not for beginners, I do believe this book should be a part of any C/C++ Developers personal library. Its been a long time since I got this much value out of ‘programming’ book. I sincerely hope that they add to this book and cover the changes and evolution into C++20 and beyond. I highly recommend this book for old and new C dogs alike.
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