Past readers will find that the new edition has changed a great deal and grown considerably to encompass new language features, particularly run-time type identification, namespaces, and the standard library. At the same time, readers will recognize the lucid style and sensible advice that made previous editions so readable and enjoyable. Probably the biggest change is a substantial new section, well over 200 pages in length, covering the contents and design of the C++ standard library, the most important new feature of the C++ specification. The author has also added a substantial number of new exercises while keeping many from previous editions that have retained their value.

While The C++ programming Language is not a C++ tutorial, strictly speaking, anyone learning the language, especially those coming from C, will greatly benefit from the clear presentation of all its elements. It is impossible to overstate the importance of this book for anyone who is serious about using C++. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Dr. Dobb's Journal
Read the entire Review, including a chapter-by-chapter analysis of this book.

Bjarne Stroustrup's The C++ programming Language, Third Edition (Addison-Wesley, 1997) has been available for several months. This work, by the creator of C++, is the definitive treatment of the subject and has been since its first edition in 1987. I must confess that I did not care for the first edition. I had expected a tutorial approach as elegant as the classic K&R white book. But then, K&R was about C, a programming language that supported a familiar programming model. The C++ programming model was new to most of us ten years ago, and Stroustrup's first edition was daunting, to say the least. Looking at it now, I find it far less so and much easier to read.

Comparing the first and third editions of The C++ programming Language provides insight into how the C++ language has grown and changed in the past decade. The third edition has almost three times the number of pages and a slightly different organization. Whereas the first edition included a 67-page language reference manual at the end, the third edition includes only a language grammar section to represent formal language definition. This is appropriate. The ANSI/ISO Standard document, which is now the formal language and library definition, is itself about 750 pages long. Stroustrup plans to publish The Annotated C++ Language Standard (coauthored by Andrew Koenig, the ANSI C++ committee's Project Editor) sometime this year.

The third edition takes a tutorial approach with many of Stroustrup's personal programming philosophies. The author's explanations of how he uses language features provide examples for learning the behavior of those features. He also explains code idioms that some programmers routinely use but that he finds inappropriate.

As much as possible, the third edition reflects Standard C++. When small language features are found to be missing, particularly new ones, Stroustrup pledges to add them to a future printing

This book is an essential addition to a C++ programmer's library. It is not for dummies, and it wouldn't be my first choice for an entry-level, self-help tutorial on C++ for beginning programmers. It is, however, an excellent textbook for programmers who are self-motivated and students who study under the watchful care of a skilled instructor. As an experienced C++ programmer, I find the book useful as a reference to language usage and behavior. The author invented the language and then stayed close to the standardization and innovation process for the duration, always maintaining a careful vigilance over the evolution of his brainchild. Consequently, this book serves, for those who do not care to pore over the ANSI/ISO document (or the promised annotated version), as the authority on the Standard C++ language, how it works, and how you should use it. -- Al Stevens, Dr. Dobb's Journal --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

This is the first book on AWK. It begins with a tutorial that shows how easy AWK is to use. The tutorial is followed by a comprehensive manual for the new version of AWK. Subsequent chapters illustrate the language by a range of useful applications, such as:

• Retrieving, transforming, reducing, and validating data
• Managing small, personal databases
• Text processing
• Little languages
• Experimenting with algorithms

020107981XB04062001

About The Author
Brian W. Kernighan works in the Computing Science research Center at Bell Laboratories, Lucent Technologies. He is Consulting Editor for Addison-Wesley's Professional Computing Series and the author, with Dennis Ritchie, of The C programming Language.

020107981XAB04062001

The six students profiled by Ridgway are intended as a cross-section of the overall Wharton class: hungry, ambitious, and surprisingly career-oriented for such young people. Hippies these are not. Readers follow the six students as they pursue entry-level assignments at the elite fixtures of modern American business: investment banking on Wall Street (for example, Goldman Sachs and Lazard Freres, Citigroup, Lehman Brothers); industry (L'Oreal, Johnson and Johnson, General Mills, Microsoft); entrepreneurism ("One Stop College Shop"); nonprofits (Peace Corps, IMF, and World Bank); and of course, consulting (McKinsey, Bain, BCG). The diversity of the six students' career considerations, as well as their gender and ethnic mix will lead many readers to find one or another of the characters with whom they feel most sympathetic.

The book's strength lies in its rich detail: students who've recently gone through or will go through the job-hunting process will easily recognize Ridgway's stories about nerve-wracking interviews, the negotiating dance around job offers, and the experience of internships. In particular, students who want a feel for the Penn campus and the Wharton program will relish the details of the physical environment, as well as the sometimes blow-by-blow accounts of interviews faced by the eager-beaver job seekers. If you want to understand what kinds of interview questions microsoft asks its college hires, or how white-shoe Wall Street firms treat their summer interns after the offer letters are signed and first-day orientation ends, this book is for you. That said, Ridgway supplements this anecdotal detail with macro-level perspective, too. HR professionals and currently employed workers, for example, may be interested in the average compensation of Wharton graduates in 2003-2004--an impressive $50K base salary, and nearly $20K in various bonuses.

Running with the Bulls follows a chronological format, so that readers follow the six students through the school year. Starting with resume submission, going through interviews, in some cases trying internships, and then ultimately ending with full-time jobs, the Wharton class's experiences show the ups and downs faced by young career seekers. In the end, entrepreneurs and nonprofit fans may be disappointed, but perhaps not surprised, to find that all six of the book's subjects, end up in Establishment-oriented jobs, but with this story, the journey, rather than the proverbial final destination, proves to be the most interesting part. --Peter Han

From Publishers Weekly
Wharton, the business school of the University of Pennsylvania, has a glamorous reputation that is fueled in part by illustrious alumni, like Donald Trump and Ronald Perelman, and Forbes reporter Ridgway makes a big deal of its prominence. The institution's distinction, however, does not rub off onto Ridgway's undistinguished account of the 2003-2004 academic year. She follows six seniors as they make their way through the corporate recruitment process while completing their degrees. Though she tries to make everything sound special (it happened at Wharton!), what she lays out is a series of generic experiences-from internships to interviews to job offers-that could have taken place at any business school. The students themselves present a limited range of high-achieving personalities, and since there's never any doubt that they'll be able to find jobs, Ridgway is unable to infuse their stories with any real dramatic tension. What might have made an interesting magazine article proves too thin when stretched to book length. Wharton officials are bound to love it, though-there's barely any acknowledgment that other business schools exist, or any substantial challenge to the school's prestige.
Copyright © Reed business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.