I almost passed on this book because of some of the negative reviews.

Okay, it is no Code Complete, but this book is an absolute gem. I have been programming C++ for about 6 years now (VB users be darned, it is my favorite programming language, period) and I was amazed how much I agreed with this author's advice.

Yeah, I learned a lot from Scott Meyers' canonical "Effective" books. But what I like about this book is that it is a no-nonsense, in-your-face, tell-it-like-it-is book that I think is essential for those wet-behind-the-ears C++ programmers (or those whiners who claim that C++ is too hard).

It will probably piss off a lot of Windows programmers as well as he is somewhat anti-Microsoft. However, I am primarily a MFC programmer and
what he says about MFC (earlier editions) and Windows programming in general is absolutely correct.

This book is a must for every novice C/C++ programmer. The experienced C/C++ programmers will probably tell you that they know all about this, so most of them will give it a pass. However, as a experienced C++ programmer, I think that they are making a mistake. They need to get this book on the shelf as well.

At the very least they can loan it to the beginners.