More Effective C++: 35 New Ways to Improve Your Programs and Designs [Paperback]

Like every sequel, in my opinion, this book is less good than the original as if the topics covered in this book are the ones that did not make it into the original book. However that being said, this book is still very good and is just more of the same good stuff that made the original book a bestseller. If you liked Effective C++, there is not risk at all that you will not like this one and will get new knowledge out of it.

I find Scott's books to be very easy to read and also very insightful as well. If you like reading about programming and C++ then you'll enjoy his writing style and topic selection. Many of the code examples are a bit too simplistic and underdeveloped but they otherwise convey the message author intends. I've read all three of his books and found this one to be the best one. Although 50 tips may seem like a lot more than the 35 offered in this one, I believe you'll find this one to be more useful.

This is the sequel to the excellent 'Effective C++' by the same author. It covers more advanced and less general topics than it's predecessor. While the first book gives you good programming style and techniques and points out how to use the language correctly, this one shows specific patterns and solutions to more narrowly defined problems. Examples of these include: smart pointers, proxy classes, lazy evaluation, double dispatching. The book also covers the new standard C++ features more in-depth and thus has a good treatment on exceptions and the new style of casting. Because the topics are less general than those from the previous book they are at the same time more controversial. Rules like 'make non-leaf classes abstract' are seldom followed in practice, even though Scott gives good reasons why one should. Another currently hot topic might be 'program in the future tense', which is perfectly sound at first glance, but eXtreme programming proponents might disagree and would want to word it a little less strong. The author sometimes drifts off on really esoteric tangents which seem unlikely to be relevant in the real world. Item 27 'requiring or prohibiting heap based objects' is such a chapter: while I can see that it might sometimes be useful to place such restrictions on classes the effort necessary to do so is just not worth it in my opinion. This is a case where a simple comment might be better than an overly complex class construct. Another point on the negative side is that the author has the unfortunate habit of introducing you to the wrong way of doing things first and almost convincing you of it and only then goes on to show the correct way. I dislike this from a learning psychological point of view, i.e. you should remember the correct way, not both or even worse just the wrong way.
Scott's writing is as usual clear, concise and oftentimes spiced with funny remarks. All in all a worthy sequel - buy it.