I have had the Special Edition sitting on my shelf for the past 10 years. I have always relished it, just like K&R's "The C Programming Language". Even though I don't program in either language on a day-to-day basis, I find their contents invaluable examples of how to stay in-touch with the machine.

Bjarne went all out and rewrote a good bit of this book, reusing some examples from the previous editions. I have been seeing entirely new and revised examples for the most part. I particularly like how he broke up some of the longer chapters from previous editions into more manageable parts. My only disappointment with this book are the little mistakes. Someone familiar with C++ should understand the intent, but it may confuse some. This book adds a LOT of new content and reorganized a lot of the previous content, so mistakes are understandable.

This book makes an excellent reference. I have already used it extensively to upgrade a personal project to C++11. This has... Read more

Rather than reprise the strategy of the 3rd edition, an intermediate textbook that suited no-one, Bjarne Stroustrup has split his C++ textbooks into roles, "Programming Principles and Practice Using C++" an intermediate language primer for the programmer learning C++ programming at university, and this text "The C++ Programming Language" for the professional programmer, even for would be aspiring language lawyers!

There being way too many introductory C++ textbooks and primers on the market, this helps to fill the need for advanced textbooks too!

And, of necessity, a lot of explaining of the new C++ 11 features and the expanded C++ 11 STL.

Warning, to quote the author: "This book assumes its readers are programmers." The essential basics are dealt with in only a few pages, in order to give more pages to many an advanced topic. In its 1360 pages, more ground is covered than in most C++ texts. Whilst in some ways rather survey like, and short on detail,... Read more

Apparently, I lucked out and got a decent book with decent shipping, as the quality of my copy is superb.

The C++ Programming Language (3rd Edition) and C++ in a Nutshell are my two primary go-to references for day-to-day C++ programming (and stackoverflow of course). As a primarily-embedded C/C++ programmer for over 25 years, I don't read books like this cover-to-cover. Instead, I bounce around the book to explore topics, gain deeper insight, or refresh my memory on some obscure corner of the language. Having done that now for over a month, I've come to like this new edition. Typography-wise, the 4th edition is easier on the eyes, with better use of whitespace, liberal use of navy... Read more