Zak's "Introduction to Programming with C++" is an easy to understand and follow book that will help beginners quickly grasp and begin using the major concepts of C++. The explanations are very thorough, and each lesson contains several programming examples that reinforce the new concept, each explained thoroughly, line by line. By following Zak's lessons and doing a handful of the exercises included at the end of each lesson, an absolute rock bottom beginner will quickly be creating 2 dimensional arrays and whipping up classes just as if they'd been doing it their whole lives.

While this is an outstanding text for learning, it's lousy as reference for later on when you want to quickly review a concept or some syntax. Buy Zak's book first and invest in a good reference book when you're done. You'll be glad you did.

If I could give it a 10 I would.

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Here is the Contents (I typed it right from the book):

An Overview of a Microcomputer System, An Introduction to Control Structures, Beginning the Problem-Solving Process,

Completing the Problem-Solving Process and Getting Started with C++, Variables, Constants, Arithmetic Operators, and Assignment Statements, Built-In Functions, Program-Defined Value-Returning Functions, Program-Defined Void Functions, The Selection Structure, More on the Selection Structure, The Repetition Structure, Manipulating Characters and Strings, Classes and Objects, Sequential Access Files, and Arrays.

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All necessary concepts for the beginner. She explains things thoroughly, consistently, and best of all CLEARLY. It may seem elementary and TOO easy for those who already have the above-mentioned concepts--but understand that there is a great need for books written like this one. Why does it have to be difficult to understand?

She does an excellent job on all of her books. Students at the college I attend love her books and learn a firm, clear understanding of concepts necessary to learn not only this, but other languages.

Throughout this book she makes references to the similiarities and differences between C++, Visual Basic, and Java. There are student data disks you can download from the publishers website that are necessary for the completion of most of the exercises AND you get a working copy of Microsoft's Visual Basic C++ to use to compile, build, and run your programs.

The only thing you may not be aware of is this book focuses (except for two chapters where Object-Oriented concepts are introduced) almost entirely of procedural programming concepts.

Make no mistake, this book is awesome.

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