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Introducing the Boost libraries: the next breakthrough in C++ programming
Boost takes you far beyond the C++ Standard Library, making C++ programming more elegant, robust, and productive. Now, for the first time, a leading Boost expert systematically introduces the broad set of Boost libraries and teaches best practices for their use.
Writing for intermediate-to-advanced C++ developers, Björn Karlsson briefly outlines all 58 Boost libraries, and then presents comprehensive coverage of 12 libraries you're likely to find especially useful. Karlsson's topics range from smart pointers and conversions to containers and data structures, explaining exactly how using each library can improve your code. He offers detailed coverage of higher-order function objects that enable you to write code that is more concise, expressive, and readable. He even takes you "behind the scenes" with Boost, revealing tools and techniques for creating your own generic libraries.
Coverage includes
- Smart pointers that provide automatic lifetime management of objects and simplify resource sharing
- Consistent, best-practice solutions for performing type conversions and lexical conversions
- Utility classes that make programming simpler and clearer
- Flexible container libraries that solve common problems not covered by the C++ Standard Library
- Powerful support for regular expressions with Boost.Regex
- Function objects defined at the call site with Boost.Bind and Boost.Lambda
- More flexible callbacks with Boost.Function
- Managed signals and slots (a.k.a. the Observer pattern) with Boost.Signals
The Boost libraries are proving so useful that many of them are planned for inclusion in the next version of the C++ Standard Library. Get your head start now, with Beyond the C++ Standard Library.
From the Back Cover
Introducing the Boost libraries: the next breakthrough in C++ programming
Boost takes you far beyond the C++ Standard Library, making C++ programming more elegant, robust, and productive. Now, for the first time, a leading Boost expert systematically introduces the broad set of Boost libraries and teaches best practices for their use.
Writing for intermediate-to-advanced C++ developers, Björn Karlsson briefly outlines all 58 Boost libraries, and then presents comprehensive coverage of 12 libraries you're likely to find especially useful. Karlsson's topics range from smart pointers and conversions to containers and data structures, explaining exactly how using each library can improve your code. He offers detailed coverage of higher-order function objects that enable you to write code that is more concise, expressive, and readable. He even takes you "behind the scenes" with Boost, revealing tools and techniques for creating your own generic libraries.
Coverage includes
- Smart pointers that provide automatic lifetime management of objects and simplify resource sharing
- Consistent, best-practice solutions for performing type conversions and lexical conversions
- Utility classes that make programming simpler and clearer
- Flexible container libraries that solve common problems not covered by the C++ Standard Library
- Powerful support for regular expressions with Boost.Regex
- Function objects defined at the call site with Boost.Bind and Boost.Lambda
- More flexible callbacks with Boost.Function
- Managed signals and slots (a.k.a. the Observer pattern) with Boost.Signals
The Boost libraries are proving so useful that many of them are planned for inclusion in the next version of the C++ Standard Library. Get your head start now, with Beyond the C++ Standard Library.
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Customer Reviews
As a programmer, you have so many task specific features to implement, that you really don't have the time (or even interest) to implement the fundamentals. Yes, you have the C++ standard library to assist you, but the Boost libraries take you to an entirely new level. And the Boost libraries have the absolute top quality, which most of us just can not achieve even if we had all the time in the world. Yet, the libraries *are* fundamental in the sense that they solve common programming issues (and also in many cases show the path to upcoming C++ standards). It is hard to imagine an application making use of *all* the Boost libraries, but I'd say that it is equally hard to imagine an application which would not benefit from any Boost library.
[Did you get this far without ever having visited http://www.boost.org? Then now is the time to do that...
Done? Ok, let's continue with the book.]
Without any statistics to support me, I am pretty convinced that the average Boost user is far more experienced in C++ than most of us who make a living out of C++ programming (let alone those who do not). This book will help to flatten out this bias, by making Boost easy to understand and immediately useful for those who read it. It is clearly written - technically correct while never being boring, even if you read from first to last page. It includes many code examples, which repeatedly made me associate to uses in my programming. I would have liked the examples and the Boost libraries on an accompanying CD, but this is no major concern - it's better to get the freshest release from boost.org anyway. I read the book basically from start to end, skimming a couple of libraries that I found no immediate use for. The book covers 12 libraries out of 58 which makes me looking forward to a follow-up book covering yet another 12 or so libraries.
This book covers the most immediately useful Boost libraries for the general audience. Topics include various smart pointers, including the vital shared_ptr, that makes STL container of polymorphic types much easier to deal with, extra casting operators, regular expressions, and the signal library, that provides a framework for implementing the observer design pattern.
A large chunk of the book is devoted to functional issues, covering the bind, lambda and functional libraries, which work together to substantially extend the functor capabilities of the STL. Code making use of these libraries are a good deal more powerful than what's currently in the standard library, more readable (although that's not necessarily saying much), and might even make the dream of writing loop-free code with functors a reality.
As an introduction to Boost, this is pretty good, which is just as well, given how little competition there is out there. Bjorn Karlsson writes well, and provides plenty of examples of the code in action. None of the examples are very long, however. In many places you'll find just enough to work out the syntax of the libraries, which you can then use with the API details that are also provided to get your own code working. It's not intended to be a very deep treatment of any of the libraries, however.
However, if you're looking for an introduction to Boost's most immediately usable code, this is a good purchase.
There's nothing ground breaking in the presentation of information in this book.
Please save your money and buy another book or look online for answers to boost. The answers to your boost questions are freely available at multiple online sources, which are much better introductions. Also try the boost organisation's home website.
I have read this book now and I must say that it does provide a very nice and easy introduction to many of the Boost libraries. Read more
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