C++ For Game Programmers [Paperback]

Anyway, I devoured this book in a few days. It is written in the fasion of Scott Meyers indispensable "Effective C++" series. Noel explains what the compiler may or may not do for you. For instance, you may be surprised to learn that your inline functions may in fact not be inlined. Noel explains why and how to better your chances of getting your function truly inlined. If you are used to always writing copy constructors, Noel will show you when not to in game code. The breakdown of the virtual function table for an object with multiple inheritance was an eye opener. He also supplies a memory manager worth it's weight in gold! (How do you weigh code...?)

Also covered are the STL, Abstract Interfaces (great for implementing your graphics pipeline in BOTH Direct X and OpenGL), Plug In's (very cool coverage) as well as implementing your own Run Time Type Checker you can use in your Linux code as well (MicroSoft's RTTI bytes).

What Noel stresses throught the book is if your code is doing something a hundred thousand times each frame, you better know what it's really doing! The code snippets are perfect. They are not complete examples you can rip off and drop into your own code. But they do show you enough to make you say "Ah ha! Thats how its done." If you are a software engineer by profession, you will find yourself hurrying to work to see where you can improve that dog you are working on. I carry a book bag every day with 5 or 6 programming books that should be in every programmers library. This book is now one of them.

Finally, if you want a sample of Noels writing, run out and pick up a copy of the April 2004 issue of "Game Developer" magazine and check out his article on "Optimizing the Content Pipeline."