The Old Joel on Software Forum: Part 4 (of 5)

C++ refresh...

I'm not sure what would make a good answer to this question, but I'll ask anyways.

I have an interview coming up for a C++ developer position. I have several years experience in this, but it's been a couple years since I've looked at it. Lately it's all been VB for me.

Could anyone suggest an online resource that might refresh my memory? I'm looking for a more advanced reference, not something that starts with "Pointers are your friend".

I've tried google, but the keywords that might give me something useful aren't popping into my head right now.

Thanks,

Edward
Friday, May 14, 2004

Guru of the Week has good material:

http://www.gotw.ca/gotw/

Dan Maas
Friday, May 14, 2004

If you know all of this, you're in good shape:

http://www.parashift.com/c++-faq-lite/

Roose
Friday, May 14, 2004

Dependeing on how much time you have before the interview, you could skim through "Thinking in C++"

http://www.bruceeckel.com

Paulo Caetano
Friday, May 14, 2004

> looking for a more advanced reference

This book "Accelerated C++: Practical Programming by Example" by Andrew Koenig and Barbara E. Moo, is the best C++ book I've seen in a long while.

It is written for people who know nothing about C++, but immediately introduces "advanced" language features (streams, STL, iterators, etc.), and even seasoned C++ programmers will find new ideas on almost every page.

It is also quite short (336 pages).

Employed Russian
Friday, May 14, 2004

Thank you folks, I'll have a look through these.

Edward
Friday, May 14, 2004

Scott Meyers books (Effective C++, More Effective C++ and Effective STL). They are easy to read, direct to the point. Very good source indeed.

And besides www.gotw.ca, take a look at Meyers home page ( http://www.aristeia.com ) he has some articles online.

Plus, Andrei Alexandrescu home page has some good articles ( http://www.moderncppdesign.com ), some of his stuff are heavy template-meta-programming (he is mostly know for this) which is probably outside the scope of the interview, but some of his articles are for more "usual" stuff (and even the TMP stuff is good to take a look at and at least know that exists).

whatever
Friday, May 14, 2004

Thanks 'whatever', but if they're heavy into templates, I'm outta there anyways ;-)

Thanks for the links.

Edward
Friday, May 14, 2004

Edward,

Modern C++ is all about the templates. I did a C++ refresher myself a little over a year ago and finally "learned" templates. Current compilers finally have full support. The difference between templated C++ and non-templated C++ is astonishing. It is like a different language, I'd dare say as big of a difference as going from C to C++ (in terms of concepts).

If you want to do fast development in C++ using the STL, I'd recommend biting the bullet and learning templates.

Ben Allison
Friday, May 14, 2004

I see your point, Ben. I'm not disagreeing with you. I've done some work with templates, and it worked out fairly well.

My last experience with templates (someone else's work) was awful. Simply awful. I was writing with tongue-in-cheek, but I'm still leery of them.

Edward
Friday, May 14, 2004

http://www.possibility.com/epowiki/Wiki.jsp?page=InterviewQuestions

anonymous
Friday, May 14, 2004

Very interesting anon, good on ya.

Edward
Friday, May 14, 2004