Scott Meyers
Newsgroup Posting Announcing Effective C++, Second Edition
On September 19, 1997, Scott Meyers posted the following announcement to the newsgroups comp.std.c++, comp.lang.c++, and comp.lang.c++.moderated.
Subject: Announcing "Effective C++, Second Edition"
Just when you thought it was safe to go back to the bookstores,
Addison-Wesley has published a second edition of my book, "Effective
C++." This posting gives some information about the new edition and
describes how you can win an autographed copy. If you want to skip the
propaganda and jump straight to how you can win a copy, search for
"WINNING AN AUTOGRAPHED COPY" now.
THE BOOK
Vital Statistics:
Effective C++, Second Edition: 50 Specific Ways to Improve Your
Programs and Designs
by Scott Meyers
Addison-Wesley Professional Computing Series
ISBN 0-201-92488-9 * Paperback * 288 pages * 1998
About US$38
Details available at http://www.awl.com/cseng/titles/0-201-92488-9/
If you've read the original edition, you may be interested in a summary
of how the editions differ. This is from the preface:
In the six years since I wrote the [original] book, C++ has changed, the
C++ library has changed (see Item 49), my understanding of C++ has
changed, and accepted usage of C++ has changed. That's a lot of change,
and it was important to me that the technical material in Effective C++
be revised to reflect those changes. I'd done what I could by updating
individual pages between printings, but books and software are
frighteningly similar -- there comes a time when localized enhancements
fail to suffice, and the only recourse is a system-wide rewrite. This
book is the result of that rewrite: Effective C++, Version 2.0.
Every Item in the book has been reworked. Of the 50 original Items, I
retained 48, though I tinkered with the wording of a few Item titles (in
addition to revising the accompanying discussions). The retired Items
(i.e., those replaced with completely new material) are numbers 32 and
49, though much of the information that used to be in Item 32 somehow
found its way into the revamped Item 1. I swapped the order of Items 41
and 42, because that made it easier to present the revised material they
contain. Finally, I reversed the direction of my inheritance arrows.
They now follow the almost-universal convention of pointing from derived
classes to base classes. This is the same convention I followed in my
1996 book, More Effective C++.
If you haven't read the first edition, this text from the back cover
attempts to convince you that you've missed out on something big:
The first edition of Effective C++ sold nearly 100,000 copies and was
translated into four languages. It's easy to understand why. Scott
Meyers' practical approach to C++ described the rules of thumb employed
by the experts--the things they almost always do or almost always avoid
doing--to produce clear, correct, efficient code.
Highlights of Effective C++, 2nd Edition include:
+ Expert guidance on object-oriented design, class design, and the
proper use of inheritance
+ An examination of the standard C++ library, including how the
Standard Template Library and classes like string and vector affect
the structure of well-written programs
+ Discussions of late-breaking language features like in-class
constant initializations, namespaces, and member templates
+ Wisdom usually possessed by only the most experienced developers
For more information, point your browser to
http://www.awl.com/cseng/titles/0-201-92488-9/
There you'll find a table of contents and the complete text of several
Items from the book, plus some other stuff Addison-Wesley thinks is
important (like information on how to order the book.)
WINNING AN AUTOGRAPHED COPY
Much of what I know about C++ I learned from the Usenix C++ newsgroups,
and I want to express my thanks to the participants of those newsgroups
by giving away some autographed copies of the new Effective C++. If
you'd like to receive a book, all you have to do is visit my web page at
http://www.aristeia.com/
and click on my email address to send me a request for a book. The
deadline for entries is September 30, and please don't play games with
the email headers to make it look like you got in on time when you
didn't...
I expect to receive more requests for books than I'll have books to give
away (I figure I'll have 15-20 books), so in your request, tell me why
you think you deserve a free book. After the entry deadline, I'll read
all the email, and I'll send autographed books to whomever I feel like
-- based purely on the whim of the moment. It is thus in your best
interest to put me in a rather whimsical mood :-)
Good luck. I look forward to hearing from you, and I hope you like the
new (and improved!) edition of Effective C++.
Scott