Title: Other Publications

I wish I had time to do justice to the good publications that cross my desk. I either spend time reading them or writing about them (well you know what I mean).

Publications tend to wax and wane in quality. Despite some fairly weak regulars, C++ Report has got much better over the last year and the same applies to its sibling 'The Journal of Object-Oriented Programming.' However I do have a problem with their costs. In the USA each a one year subscription (just ten issues) to either of these publications costs $79, the UK subscription rate is £80 (equivalent to more than $120, in other words more than an extra $4 per issue) despite being bulk shipped and distributed locally. The US domestic rate for C++ Report is just about justifiable, though I wish they would demand uniformly high standards from all their contributors. The likes of James Coplien and Herb Sutter are examples to all but you would not be wise to assume that all contributors meet the same standards of authority. It is certainly much better than a couple of years ago but not yet quite back to the halcyon days of the early part of this decade.

There are a couple of other SIGS publications that regularly cross my desk but I will leave those for another time so that I can spend a little time on a couple of Miller Freeman publications. I recently commented on the excellence of The C/C++ Users Journal and the high quality of its regular contributors (competition can be beneficial and I suspect that the competition from CUJ has been partly responsible for the improvements in C++ Report). I think it is time that I reminded all you Windows Developers of its sibling publication, 'The Windows Developers Journal'. Obviously this is a more focused publication and of less interest to the language specialists but that is only because it is definitely more interesting to those developing for Microsoft platforms. One point I should make is that, unlike some of its rival publications, it publishes relatively little that is specifically Visual Basic oriented.

Indeed C++ plays a large part in the language element of its contents. If you are a Windows developer (even at hobbyist level) you should try this publication, you might well find it was just what you are looking for. Like CUJ, a one-year subscription (12 issues) is $34.95 in the USA and $64 elsewhere. Do the maths and you find that their international shipping charges are $2.50 per issue. That seems a bit more reasonable.

For more details of SIGS publications see http://www.sigs.com/ and for the Miller Freeman publications refer to www.cuj.com or www.wdj.com as appropriate.

I have just got space to mention Visual C++ Developer. This is a specialist newsletter aimed at users of Visual C++. The annual (12 issues of about 16 A4 pages + downloaded code) is $149 in the USA and $169 elsewhere. I am always staggered by the cost per page for this kind of item, particularly considering that many contributors to ACCU write better and more accurately. However such newsletters do address a need and if you are developing professionally just one article a year may be worth the sub. If you are interested visit their web page, www.pinpub.com.