I think that book is worth reading even to people who have no intention of going anywhere near C++, as long as they are interested in programming language design and evolution. I wish there were more books like this one to explain the kind of thinking that went into the design of a language and to tell its history.
I had commented on the book on HN about a month ago:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16275341
Excerpt from it:
"I found that book very interesting in many regards. I had bought and read it several years ago (out of interest, though I have not worked on C++ professionally).
Stroustrup goes into a lot of details about the reasons for many design decisions in the language."
That's one of the reasons that make the book interesting. He even goes into human and cultural aspects of programming.
I would also like to add that it helps to read "The Design and Evolution of C++".
I found that I plateaued early in my C++ journey. However, I was always reading from the experts and it really helped to read material from Dr. Stroustrup. Once I began to see the common thread behind what he was saying and understood why some things were the way they were, it helped understand when it's a good time to use/not-use certain things. This helped break past that barrier and to improve my skill further.
Also, it helped to write a _lot_ of c++ code and think about how that could be better.
I'm afraid I didn't read a tonne of good C++ code in that period but somehow, I managed to keep growing and at some point, it became my "go to" language and I really started to like it.
Long story, short: Read books from the experts, esp. Dr. Stroustrup.