Stroustrup’s The C++ Programming Language has now been recommended to me by a few people.
Well, he *DID* come up with the language, after all… ;) A couple of our CS types here at work got a chance to go see him talk at a recent seminar, so they’re now all converts. Of course, there are a couple other guys here who hate C++, so the hallway conversations have been quite interesting!
P.S. Is your background in both hardware and software development? You seem to have experience in a few fields; mechanical design, machine tools, software development, electronics,… You seem quite the versatile technologist. I’m guessing you’re an Engineer by profession?
Well, I always wanted to be an engineer… 
I started out as a mechanic back in the 1970’s, and then worked as a machinist for a couple years after a stint in the USAF. I worked my way up to general manager of the shop, and realized that we had grown too big for the owner to keep everything in his head, so I bought a computer and started tracking inventory and production schedules. The shop was overextended and not making deadlines, plus I realized that I preferred working with the computer, so I quit the machine shop in 1987 and moved to Tucson to start my computer career, working my way up from installer, to programmer, to system administrator.
A few years ago, I realized that I really missed the tangibility of working with my hands, making things, and a Woodcraft store just happened to be opening up a couple miles from my house, so I bought a bunch of big tools (jointer, planer, table saw, etc) and started making sawdust. About the time I was putting together my wood shop, I also decided to get back into music electronics. (I forgot to mention that I had started building Heathkits back in the 1970’s and that I had repaired and hot-rodded tube amps in the 90’s - wow, I just looked and found the first edition of my tube amp newsletter online! http://www.harmony-central.com/Guitar/tame.txt Man, that’s got to be at least 15 years old! And while I’m walking memory lane - I wrote up the first slap bass lessons on the Internet - you can still find the first three at: http://www.harmony-central.com/Bass/Lessons/ 1993, baby!) Anyway, I bought a few MOTM, Blacet and Oakley kits, and started soldering. Somehow I ended up finding the x0xb0x, and that lead me to the MB-808, which lead me back here to MIDIbox land. And at some point, I realized I wanted to put together my own designs, so I bought Eagle, various design books, etc. Then I started organizing group buys and farming out prototype work, and I quickly found out that I could do a better job if I bought my own machine tools. So here we are…!
Doug
but I started with Stan Lippman’s C++ Primer. You may also like Deitel and Deitel’s “C++ How to Program”. I also have Stroustrup’s C++ Programming Language for reference.