C++ For Game Programmers (Game Development Series) 2nd Edition

I've been working as a game programmer for about seven years now, and I feel that this book still has things to teach me. It's a great reference and refresher course for programming veterans, while still acting as a fantastic primer for young programmers interested in learning useful techniques for game development.If you're a computer science student looking to work in games or a seasoned developer who needs to brush up for a job interview (or just day-to-day development) - then this book is a fine choice!

I think that this book should be read by any programmer who wishes to improve his programming skills in C++. Especially, if you want to create games with C++, then YOU HAVE TO read this book, because it offers interesting insight in many topics that must be considered when aiming at efficient software development.The Performance and Memory Management topics are clearly worth buying this book. The style of writing is clear and entertaining. If you like programming and if you like C++, you'll enjoy clear explanations. Something else that I've really appreciated is that for some problems, the author explains several solutions, discussing the pros and cons of each one, until reaching the 'best' one. This is nice, because it encourages the reader to think by himself and to learn from the mistakes.I don't give it 5 stars because I'd have liked to receive more in-depth information on scripting, since this is something that is of growing importance in the market.Conclusion: if you want to be better at programming in C++, buy this book.

This is a great addition to the bookshelf of anyone who has been programming for a little while and who finally gets the syntax and basics of C++. Do not expect to learn everything you need to here, this is strictly for people who are done learning the basic concepts of programming and who are ready for a better explanation of how things work under the hood and how you can optimize your code's performance.I do not regret buying this book and recommend that anyone who is getting ready to design efficient code should get it as well.

I'm a future Game Developer which has to self-study since there is no way to prepare seriously in my country, and the only option I have, besides self-studying is to study abroad, which I can't afford at the moment.My background before purchasing this book was intermediate knowledge of PHP, basic knowledge of JavaScript, 4 years of tweaking and adding features to StepMania without the proper knowledge of C++, and Beginning C++ Through Game Programming by Michael Dawson.Michael Dawson's book's last chapter talked about the basics of Inheritance, and the first chapter of this book started talking about Inheritance, this coincidence was funny and awesome for me, the transition between books made me feel the same way I felt the day I finished elementary school and began to go to high school.I found the information in this book amazing and really valuable. I really loved it, it was intensive enough for me to understand most of the code I have seen in StepMania, it explained technical implications in detail to be conscious about where to use a specific feature of C++ or not, at the end of the chapter provides you a list of additional sources if you want to research further in a specific topic. It also helped me to understand about many mistakes I did when developing my own StepMania version with only the background of PHP/JS.I don't like to give 3 stars to such a good book that deserves 5 stars, but I really have to do it.The first dropped star is because there is no digital version, although this has nothing to do with the quality of the book, the lack of digital version affected my overall experience with it. I have different devices (PC/iPad/Kindle), and I use all of them in conjunction with Paperback for a single book, for ex. if I don't remember something but I know its in the book, a search in the digital version is pretty straightforward. When I'm having a meal, waiting in a line (ex. bank), in the restroom, etc. its really comfortable to read it in the Kindle, or in the iPad if i'm at home, and finally, I use the Paperback format to read during my travel to work in public transport since its too dangerous to read using a device because of the delinquency of my country. With this specific book I had to break my reading habits, If I could spend 2-3 hours per day reading it, I had to reduce it to 1 hour per day.The second dropped star is because some chapters doesn't feel as good and polished like most of the content of the book, they were either incomplete or not what I was expecting, I even felt like "now what?" after reading them because of this "incompleteness".Chapter 13: Plug-Ins, has an excellent overview about why you should consider using plugins and gives you useful examples for Windows, but that's all, the chapter ends with "Both Linux and Apple operating systems have similar mechanisms to load dynamic libraries" but doesn't provide more information, and the Suggested Reading, is just a Microsoft's Book (although its explained that there are almost no information).Chapter 14: C++ and Scripting, after the amazing coverage of STL in the previous chapters I was expecting at least the basics of LUA (or Python) rather than 17 pages explaining why scripting is a good idea and where you should use it.Chapter 17: Object Serialization, This chapter explains pretty well the basics of object serialization, but it lacks a further discussion, I was interested about serialization strategies with binary formats less likely to break with changes of the structure.Chapter 18: Dealing with Large Projects, I found the title of this chapter misleading, it talks about architectural strategies which also apply for small projects, a better title could be "Project Architecture", the content is OK, but the title bugs me.Anyway, I really recommend this book, Its worth every penny, and I would not mind paying a bit more if the chapters mentioned before had a deeper coverage, but don't take my poor background as a reference to decide whether to read it or not. The book is pretty dense and it would be difficult for a "normal person" to be able to digest it the way I did.

I have read many books on C++ programming but this book just pins down the most important problems going very deep and detailed into "why ,when and how" .It addresses the issues using real world software development problems and clears out many C++ dark corners.Any beginner to intermediate C++ developer which embarks onto Game / Game Engine programming with C++ must read this book.

Good for "switchers". If you are not new in programming but need to switch to C++

An intermediate C++ programming guide. It covers a lot of good techniques for crash proofing your program and handling very high CPU useage. Nothing specific about graphics or game AI. Very detailed information on efficient memory useage that I have not seen elsewhere.This book is a bit thin in coverage of STL & Boost and one probably needs to learn these elsewhere. The Stephan T. Lavavej lectures on msdn channel 9 are pretty good.

Simply all you need to improve your c++ knowledge for game programming. Clear and complete book both for expert and beginners.