Effective C++ Note （1, Introduction）

judicious: showing or having good sense  ||  intuitive: of or coming from intuition; possessing intuition;

A judiciously chosen and carefully craft set of classes, functions, and templates can make application programming easy,intuitive, efficient, and nearly error-free.

unduly: more than  is right or proper, excessively

It isn't unduly difficult to write effective C++ programs, if you know how to do it.

plain: clearly; absolutely

Used without discipline, however, C++ can lead to code that is incomprehensible, unmaintainable, inextensible, inefficient, and justplain wrong.

the nuts and bolts of sth: detailed practical aspect of sth  (注：nut 螺母，bolt 螺栓)

The advice I proffer falls into two broad categories: general design strategies, andthe nuts and bolts of specific language features.

at the outset: at the beginning

It's important to make these decisions correctly at the outset, because a poor choice may not become apparent until much later in the development process, at which point rectifying it is often difficult, time-consuming, and expensive.

sweat: work hard 

It's is crucial to sweat details like these, because failure to do so almost always leads to unexpected, possibly mystifying program behavior.

kludge: clumsy, lame, ugly, dumb, but good enough

Portability is a key concern in this book, so if you're looking for platform-dependent hacks andkludges, this is not the place to find them.

color: affect someone's decision or opinion about sth ||guideline: official instruction or advice

Software design and implementation is a complex task, one colored by the constraints of hardware, the operating system, and the application, so the best I can do is to provideguidelines for creating better program.

rationale: fundamental reason for or logical basis of sth || toil: work long or hard

Only by understanding the rationalebehind an Item can you determine whether it applies to the software you are developing and to the unique constraints under which youtoil.

decent: proper, acceptable; satisfactory, quite good

If you're unfamiliar with STL, you'll want to have a decent reference available as you read this book, because STL is too useful for me not to take advantage of it.

steer clear of: avoid becoming involved with sth.

Effective C++ programmers do their best to steer clear of undefined behavior.

be on the lookout for/ keep a lookout for : to be watching carefully to find, obtain, or avoid someone or something

In this book, I point out a number of places where you need to be on the lookout for it.

gloss over sth : treat sth briefly, in a superficial or an incomplete way, so as to avoid embarrassing details.

In this book, I often gloss over the distinction between functions and function templates and between classes and class templates.

chasm : deep opening in the ground, abyss, gorge; wide difference

My approach to dealing with this chasm between standard C++ and reality is to point out places where the C++ constructs I examine are likely to cause problems in a threaded environment.

tide sb over (sth) : help sb through (a difficult period) by providing what he needs

If you like, you can turn to those Items and read them now, but if you'd prefer to start the book at the beginning instead of the end, the following executive summary willtide you over.