Rescued by C++
Jamsa Press
$30, DOS, Windows 3.x, 95/NT
800-432-4112, www.jamsa.com
With reports of upwards of 400,000 high-tech positions going begging, this teach-yourself book-software package for C++ programmer wannabes could be a job ticket for anybody willing to wade through some semi-tough reading.
Las Vegas-based Kris Jamsa boasts credentials as one of America’s best known writer-publishers of programming texts, with dozens of complex books to his credit covering heavy-duty code hacking for professionals. Now he turns to tyros with this low-cost primer that, if nothing else, will help remove the mystique of computer software by letting a user produce a wide variety of small programs.
The package includes terse but on-target chapters on such programming issues as accepting input from keyboard and mouse, setting up program logic and displaying output.
At the heart of things is the inclusion of a CD-ROM with all the practice programs in the book and Borland Corp.’s Turbo C++ Lite compiler, which converts the instructions that one types as an ordinary text file into the 0s and 1s that computers understand and thus creates executable files.
Turbo C++ Lite is very limited, and anybody who gets through writing even a few of the hundreds of included programs in Jamsa’s fine book almost certainly will rush to add a proper compiler, such as Borland C++ or Microsoft Visual C++, for at least another $100. By then, of course, the user will be well on the way to some serious programming.
