First, what this book isn't: a complete, semi-complete or even somewhat complete reference for the C++ language. This book will not give you the information to pull off anything really practical in the language.

However, what this book does do (or at least did for me) is give me a really good introduction to the language that made sense. I program in a number of languages, but never got C++ in spite of picking up a few books here and there. For some reason, this book jelled all my previous aborted efforts at learning C++ and with the addition of some harder-core references later, made me into a semi-competent C++ coder. For some reason Oualline's style stuck to my brain and let me move on to more advanced books, where other intro's didn't. Your milage may vary.