Wednesday, March 19, 2003

The Next Edition of Effective C++

I'm beginning to work on the third edition of Effective C++. The second
edition was a fairy conservative sprucing up of the original, but for the
third edition, I expect to make more extensive changes.

I constrained the second edition to follow the Item breakdown of the first
edition fairly closely, but this time I plan to start with a reasonably
clean slate and ask myself, "What are the 50 most useful pieces of advice
for professional developers NOW?" Without a doubt, some of the current
Items will make the cut, but it's time to include new topics, almost
certainly including design and implementation in the presence of templates;
dealing with issues related to exception safety; the impact of threading,
etc. At the same time, I want to continue to avoid undue overlap among my
three books, so there's little chance I'll devote significant space to
topics I already treat in More Effective C++ or Effective STL.

I'll also maintain what I consider to be fundamental strengths of the book:
Items that are short, specific, to the point, and that take both the
Standard and real compilers/libraries into account.

I have plenty of ideas on what EC++/3E should contain, but I'm hoping
you'll offer suggestions, too. What Items or parts of Items are no longer
needed? What new topics should be addressed? What did I do right that I
should avoid breaking? What needs fixing? Are there any things I did or
didn't do in More Effective C++ or in Effective STL that I should be sure
to copy or be sure NOT to copy? Are there ideas from other books I should
steal? In short, how can I make EC++/3E the best EC++ ever?

I hope to receive a lot of email in response to this message, so please
don't be offended if all you get is a pro forma reply. I have only so much
time and energy, and I hope we agree that it's more important for me to
work on the book than to send everybody a personalized reply to each
suggestion. Actually, if you squint just right, you can think of the
revised book as a personalized reply to each of you, because I'll take all
your feedback into account as I work on it.

If would be most convenient for me if you'd send all suggestions to
EC++3E@....

Thanks in advance for all the help I know you'll offer.

Scott