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afkhl;'

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I would suggest following the advice on the Standard C++ Foundation's home page:
https://isocpp.org/wiki/faq/how-to-learn-cpp

In particular:

What is the best book to learn from?
https://isocpp.org/wiki/faq/how-to-learn-cpp#best-book

Albatross (4553)

Welcome, welcome.

Principles and Practice Using C++ is a good choice. Its current (second) edition is slightly outdated by now, but it's otherwise it's a good book for non-programmers (and I'm not sure there *is* an up-to-date beginner's C++ book).

-Albatross

rjphares (136)

I would recommend something like C++ Primer Plus by Stephen Prata. I have done a lot of research with books and had success with this book. Maybe all the books have their purpose but I was able to get passed some humps with this book. I also recommend something other than books like youtube or edx especially for someone who didn't grow up with text books.

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dutch (2548)

someone who didn't grow up with text books

I.e., an uneducated person.

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Albatross (4553)

I'd rather not be contrarian, especially in front of a newcomer, but C++ Primer Plus is not a good book. It's severely outdated, but had plenty of issues even before C++11 came out.

I'm just going to quote Cubbi on this, who summed up the problems with the book perfectly:

http://www.amazon.com/review/R3PBNZTSMYMTQT

Cubbi wrote:
This book, in its 6th edition (second printing, 2012) maintains the layout and much of the content of its first edition (1991): it describes the mostly C-like language that was in use back then, with the rest of the 20+ years of C++ history tacked on as an afterthought. Even in the original part, classes appear long after the book spent much of the volume talking about structs, unions, arrays, pointers, and functions that work with them using C idioms and approaches (with a few mentions of C++ "alternatives"). The early 90s C++ material in chapter 15 is introduced as "several new developments in C++, beginning with exceptions" -- seriously, that's what a 2012 book says! Function templates and namespaces, C++ casts, and even the keyword typename are also introduced as "new", and the whole 1998 standard library, partially discussed in chapters 16 and 17, is "recently added". The 2011 additions are only briefly discussed in the last chapter (chapter 18), and although a few C++11 core language bits are sprinkled through the book, they are not actually used. There's also occasional invented (or perhaps archaic) terminology, mentions of the special rules for the compilers that were obsolete by 1992, distracting discussions of the pecularities of the 1989 and even pre-1989 C, occasional egregious C-isms and other poor programming practices in the examples, and similar signs of its long and patchy history. There are some factual errors, but not a lot (certainly less than in some other textbooks), mostly found in the older chapters and appendices. A couple things that I liked were that it gives a half-decent beginner-level exposure to valarray (which many other authors ignore) and that the use of I/O in the examples is generally following the accepted practices, somewhat at odds with much of the surrounding code. Overall, if you're looking for an introductory book on C++ today, look elsewhere.

Cubbi wrote:

This book, in its 6th edition (second printing, 2012) maintains the layout and much of the content of its first edition (1991): it describes the mostly C-like language that was in use back then, with the rest of the 20+ years of C++ history tacked on as an afterthought. Even in the original part, classes appear long after the book spent much of the volume talking about structs, unions, arrays, pointers, and functions that work with them using C idioms and approaches (with a few mentions of C++ "alternatives"). The early 90s C++ material in chapter 15 is introduced as "several new developments in C++, beginning with exceptions" -- seriously, that's what a 2012 book says! Function templates and namespaces, C++ casts, and even the keyword typename are also introduced as "new", and the whole 1998 standard library, partially discussed in chapters 16 and 17, is "recently added".
The 2011 additions are only briefly discussed in the last chapter (chapter 18), and although a few C++11 core language bits are sprinkled through the book, they are not actually used.

There's also occasional invented (or perhaps archaic) terminology, mentions of the special rules for the compilers that were obsolete by 1992, distracting discussions of the pecularities of the 1989 and even pre-1989 C, occasional egregious C-isms and other poor programming practices in the examples, and similar signs of its long and patchy history. There are some factual errors, but not a lot (certainly less than in some other textbooks), mostly found in the older chapters and appendices.

A couple things that I liked were that it gives a half-decent beginner-level exposure to valarray (which many other authors ignore) and that the use of I/O in the examples is generally following the accepted practices, somewhat at odds with much of the surrounding code.

Overall, if you're looking for an introductory book on C++ today, look elsewhere.

-Albatross

zapshe (1907)

learncpp.com

^Better than most books you'll find and gets updated.

Ashmor (14)

I kinda like the C++ Primer Plus book. The author is good at explaining things in my opinion. But i agree that the book is outdated. It annoyed me a great deal.

I think these videos may be very helpful for a person who only begins learning c++:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL792F8AED9E6F3E9F

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