We particularly like that Exceptional C++ is very readable. Each of the items has a clear focus, covering exactly one aspect and nothing more. Herb Sutter is amazingly consistent; his writing style perfectly matches his programming style: a class should be responsible for exactly one, clearly defined task and nothing more. The items in this book strictly abide by this rule. They are clear and pointed and condense every discussion to a bunch of concrete rules. For this reason, Exceptional C++ has the quality of a good programming style guide. 

In addition to its remarkable readability, Exceptional C++ excels at the good choice it makes regarding topics. The main sections cover the STL, exception safety, class design, compilation firewalls, name lookup, and memory management. Seen as a whole, it gives a representative overview of contemporary C++ programming techniques. It is short on template programming, however. Herb Sutter feels that the intense use of templates will render your programs non-portable because the compilers do not support templates well enough. This, unfortunately, is correct but it's a reservation of decreasing relevance, because compilers will gradually catch up with the standard. 

Despite this minor blemish, Exceptional C++ presents gems from various sources, just to name a few: 

• The pimpl idiom draws from insulation techniques published by Lakos and earlier by Coplien
• Member function hiding is a long-known effect; see Meyers, for instance
• The section on class design and inheritance draws on Barton & Nackman and Bob Martin
• STL problems are part of every in-depth seminar or book on the STL
• Exception handling has been discussed in magazine articles, most of which appeared in C++ Report

Last but not least, Exceptional C++ is fun to read. Each item is introduced as a puzzle to the reader, and each puzzle is rated for its difficulty. (This playful style stems from Sutter's " Guru of the Week ", a regular feature of the Usenet newsgroup comp.lang.c++.moderated.) We predict that even experienced C++ programmers will find a challenge here and there. If you read this book cover to cover and do not encounter a single surprise, please let us know. 

Exceptional C++ is a highly recommendable book for the serious C++ programmer. Its main merit is that it gathers bits and pieces of wisdom that emerged in the community during the past couple of years and presents them as a fun-to-read book of digestible size. 

Angelika Langer develops and teaches classes on advanced C++, STL, multithreading, internationalization, and Java. She served on the ANSI/ISO C++ Committee from 1993 to 1998. Klaus Kreft is a software architect and consultant with 15+ years of experience in industrial software development. He works for Siemens Business Services in Germany. Langer and Kreft are authors of "Standard C++ IOStreams and Locales: Advanced Programmer's Guide and Reference" (Addison-Wesley, 1999) and are columnists for C++ Report magazine.