Background: I do this C++ programming contest for a high school organization called Business Professionals of America (BPA). I've won Illinois state two years in a row now, but this year the entire contest was changed. Before, the format was one took a multiple choice test that focused on C++/programming contest, and made a program based on a scenario. This year, however, the program is to be done ahead of time, and the majority of the points have been shifted to the multiple choice, which has been changed to be generic programming questions. The Question: I need a general programming theory book (or website/download), like something that covers, in abstract terms, functions (or "modules", as the contest refers to them), classes, objects, and in addition, topics like the design process, UML, psuedocode, etc. I am not a newbie by any stretch, but they changed the contest so radically i cannot help but feel that I need some help to be successful. If anyone has used any books/resources like these in the past, I'd be more than thrilled about it. Thanks in advanced.

As the title you chose mentions "academic", I'll suggest CTM, which is an excellent book. However, it may not be as "practical" as you wish (UML, pseudocode, etc. are not discussed) but it will certainly broaden most readers's view.

Or maybe you'd prefer a software engineering book, but I don't have any suggestions for that.

Thanks for the suggestions. The reason I was going for an "academic" book is simply because to me, what I am looking for looks more like theory than practice, and most of the "teach-yourself" books that I use/am familiar with are about actually doing things, not discussion and theory. I will look into these.

Quote:The reason I was going for an "academic" book is simply because to me, what I am looking for looks more like theory than practice

I don't think so. You should link to a website or post the exact topics that are going to be covered, but from the impression I get, it's just programming questions that are detached from C++ itself, and also tend to include software engineering practices and the like.

Being able to look at programming concepts generically, rather than the through the paradigm of C++ is something that comes with experience and having used other programming languages. An academic book will most likely dive into language grammar and rather arcane computer science topics, which I highly doubt a high school level programming contest would touch.

Design process, UML, and so on are not really going to be covered by generic academic books. If it is, it's not going to help you. The best way to learn about them is to Google a lot. Books on those subjects tend to be focused on a specific topic, when what you're looking for is general knowledge.

Reading forum posts, googling on wikipedia terms and general what not is your best bet. It's very unstructured, I know, but you definitely don't want to jump into academic papers. You're covering a breadth of topics, not a single topic in depth.