In chess, learning the rules for how the pieces move is simply the first step; to master the game, you must understand the strategies and tactics that guide each move. The same applies to C++. Knowing the right strategies helps you avoid the traps and work more effectively. Luminary Rob Murray helps beginning to intermediate C++ programmers take that next step by sharing his experience and advice.

Practical code examples are used throughout to illuminate useful programming strategies and warn against dangerous practices. To further ensure comprehension, each chapter ends with a list of the key ideas introduced in that chapter, along with questions to stimulate thought and discussion.

You'll begin by learning how to choose the right abstractions for your design, taking care to preserve the distinction between abstraction and implementation. You'll then look at the process of turning an abstraction into one or more C++ classes, with discussions ranging from high-level design strategies to low-level interface and implementation details.

Single and multiple inheritance are explored in depth, beginning with a discussion of where they fit in a design and followed by detailed examples that show how the concepts are used in practice. A separate chapter covers the techniques of building classes from which others can derive, and discusses the benefits - and costs - involved.

Rob Murray offers unprecedented insight into the new templates feature, beginning with the basics and walking you through several real-world examples. The author also describes a variety of specific techniques to make your programs faster, more reusable, and more robust. Exceptions are another new C++ feature; Murray gives advice on when they should - and should not - be used. The book concludes with a look at the process of moving a project from C to C++, exploring the human issues as well as the technical ones.