I do not have the book Practical C++ Programming by Steve Oualline but I was reading his Ten Commandments for C++ programmers at http://code.rkevin.com/2010/07/the-ten-commandments-for-c-programmers/ and I was wondering if the first has been correctly transcribed? For reference the transcription is:1. Thou shalt not rely on the compiler default methods for construction, destruction, copy construction, or assignment for any but the simplest of classes. Thou shalt forget these big four methods for any nontrivial class.He seems to be advocating manually defining copy construction and copy assignment. Is that a correct interpretation of his first commandment?Edit: Although at present I am leaving Adrian's answer as the accepted one I would like anyone who views this question to read Jerry's. I did specifically ask whether the above text is accurately transcribed and not about its merit (which is probably a more interesting discussion). But Jerry does make some good points about its merit (or lack thereof) which are similar to my opinions of it. I just wanted to make sure I had the quote right before I constructed a thorough argument of why I disagree with it.
First of the The Ten Commandments for C++ Programmers by Steve Oualline correctly transcribed?
c++
For any nontrivial class I am sure that is exactly what he is suggesting - and it would certainly be good practice to write an explicit copy constructor or overloaded assignment for such a non-trivial class.