C++ Data Structures 3rd ed - Nell Dale

C++ Data Structures 3rd ed - Nell Dale

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              When introducing fundamentals, the authors often express themselves poorly and try to compensate through repetition and paraphrase. This confuses the student fresh to the material, since it is not clear whether the same point is being repeated, or developed, or a new one introduced. On the other hand, they simply skirt concepts--exception handling, for example--that need to be explained in detail. Instead of straightforwardly presenting new material, they tiptoe around it through constructs of their own design which are no more easy to learn and whose relation to the essential point is unclear. For example, something like myNode->next->back refers to the node pointed to by the back pointer of the node following myNode, i.e. to myNode itself. Not too mind-boggling. But first they have to lead us through a song and dance about a notation they invented which represents the preceding as back(next(myNode)), which is (a) unnecessary, (b) more complex, and (c) really confusing because (a) it is exactly backwards, and (b) the most deeply nested item is one that dominates the structure. The whole book is like this, a weird combination of aimlessness with a hidden agenda, expressed in patronizing, humorless, finger-wagging.
Other reviewers call it a good reference work; it is not. It is poorly indexed, partly because the explanation of a single concept may appear at intervals through several chapters of context which, though rambling, is a necessary to grasp the meaning.
Note that the enthusiastic reviews of this book come from a software reviewer, someone who finds this the clearest of the _three_ data structure books he's used, and someone who recommends it to advanced programmers, granting that you have to understand C++ classes to follow the book--although the book's task is to _introduce_ C++ classes. Another says that all previous courses just taught C++ coding--but this is a second-semester text! In other words, it's a great book to own if you don't need it.
I think teachers who like this book don't actually read it, just flip through it, checking points, "Lists, yup, linked lists, yup, doubly-linked lists, with circles and arrows on the back, yup, yup, yup, it's all there," because THEY DON'T HAVE TO LEARN ANYTHING FROM IT. I can't see how any teacher could adopt it who tried to read it from the point of view of someone new to the material presented.