title: Credibility of dated data structure programming book
body: <p>I recently rented a book from my local library for c++, the books title is: "Data Structure Programming with the standard template library in c++" by Joseph Bergin. The problem is when i checked the publication date it read 1998, which is a pretty huge time frame given the speed of computer advances today. Will this book hurt me or help me? Here is an excerpt from an algorithm in my book:</p>
  
  <pre><code>//  THIS IS AN ALGORITHM EXPLAINED AS SELECTION SORT
  template &lt;class T&gt;
  void selectionSort(T* start, T* end)                //first off, i notice an excessive use of pointers, when usually 
  {   for(T* where = start ; where &lt; end ; where++)   // im told to work around pointers if i dont need to use them
      {   T* loc = where;                             //weird bracket formatting(old practice i would guess?)
          T small = *loc;
          for                                         //very strange method of organizing for loops used in the book
          (   T* inner = where + 1;
              inner &lt; end;
              inner++;
          )
              if(*inner &lt; *loc)
              {   loc = inner;
                  small = *loc;
              }
          *loc = *where;
          *where = small;
      }
  }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>this code uses strange methods in order to make a selection sort. Pointers could easily be replaced with normal values, yet the book loves the use of pointers and odly formatted for loops. How far off is this code from a modern C++11 approach to a selection sort with arrays?</p>
  
  <p>*They also declare all of their variables with a _ prefix, does this do anything special to variables? examples of declared vars:</p>
  
  <pre><code>int _Num1;
  float _Select;
  </code></pre>