The fourth edition of “The C++ Programming Language” weighs in at 1346 pages and 44 chapters allocated over four partitions. The end of each chapter provides a list of advisory items – yielding a grand total of 699 nuggets of general programming and C++ specific wisdom for the reader to ponder.

The figure below shows a breakdown of the behemoth book’s table of contents. The number of advisories provided in each chapter and each partition are shown on the right side.

As a temporary excursion from reading and studying and writing exploratory snippets of C++11 code, I went through all 699 items and plucked out a subset of the tidbits I found most useful. Of course, your personal list would no doubt turn out differently.

Even though it’s not on my list, my absolute favorite item of advice is the first one presented at the end of chapter 2:

D’oh! Wanna guess at how much time is needed for all to become clear? Maybe Malcolm Gladwell‘s famous “10,000 hours” isn’t enough? But that’s why I love C++. It provides an endlessly rich and deep opportunity for learning.