What comes between learning the language and coding for real projects?

[John Ilves]

I've read an online C tutorial and a book but I don't really know enough to work
on any real projects. What comes in between in the process of learning C?
Can anyone direct me to some good websites about this?

Thanks,
John

 

[Peter Pichler]

I've read an online C tutorial and a book but I don't really know enough to work
on any real projects. What comes in between in the process of learning C?

A few years of painstaking gathering of experience.

I started working on real project straight out of the university, but
nowadays
I am cincerely happy that no one uses that code any more

Can anyone direct me to some good websites about this?

No online tutorial can replace a good book. And by a good book I do NOT mean
"teach yourself X in Y days" type books. Read the comp.lang.c FAQ for
recdommendations, it is posted here regularly. You can also find it on

http://www.eskimo.com/~scs/C-faq/top.html

 

[Eric]

I've read an online C tutorial and a book but I don't really know enough
to work on any real projects. What comes in between in the process of
learning C?

Having a real project that you want to do.

Whenever I want to learn a new language, like PHP or JAVA, I will also
come up with something I would like to do with that language that I
would also find useful.

I try to keep these projects limited in scope, but, again, useful.

So, what kind of thing would you want to do with your C knowledge?

 

[E. Robert Tisdale]

I've read an online C tutorial and a book
but I don't really know enough to work on any real projects.
What comes in between in the process of learning C?

A good course on "Data Structures and Algorithms".

Can anyone direct me to some good websites about this?

I used Google

http://www.google.com/

to search for

+"data structures and algorithms" +"C programming language"

and found lots of stuff. You will probably want a good textbook:

"Data Structures, Algorithms and Software Principles in C"
by Thomas A. Standish

http://www.amazon.co.uk/

I'm not recommending this textbook.
It's just the first one I found.

 

[mcheu]

I've read an online C tutorial and a book but I don't really know enough to work
on any real projects. What comes in between in the process of learning C?

I guess the next step is a course or book on software engineering
concepts. A course is better, of course, as application of the
concepts in a course project is a fairly major part of learning the
concepts. I doubt I would have gotten much out of my SE courses if
not for the projects. In my experience, my first software engineering
course was basically the first "large" project I had ever done (a
movie rental point of sale system). It also forces teamwork and (for
some people) leadership on you, as I think the focus at that level is
going to be on teamwork, rather than working alone (as it was early
on). Once you learn the skills, the larger projects don't look quite
as impossible anymore -- insanely difficult, maybe, but not
impossible.

Can anyone direct me to some good websites about this?

The Book "Code Complete" from the Microsoft press was our text book
(used in 2 different SE courses). It might be worth a look, as well
as various titles by Bochs on UML.

I don't know of any websites per se, but you can try looking at some
course websites for various Software engineering courses. It's not
the same, but it will give you some background. Some of them are
going to be locked out (students only), but there are bound to be a
few open sites with lecture notes you can look at. A quick google
search of "software engineering course" will turned up quite a few.

 

[Micah Cowan]

No online tutorial can replace a good book.

AFAIK, it *could* (maybe I'll endeaver to start one), but none
have (or perhaps there are a few I'm unaware of).

 

[Dan Pop]

AFAIK, it *could* (maybe I'll endeaver to start one), but none
have (or perhaps there are a few I'm unaware of).

Do the pirate HTML copies of K&R2 available on the Web count as online
tutorials? ;-)

Dan

 

[Dan Pop]

I've read an online C tutorial and a book but I don't really know enough to work
on any real projects.

If the book was K&R2 and you did all the exercises, you'd know enough to
work on many real projects.

What comes in between in the process of learning C?

Working on your own "toy" projects and making them increasingly complex.

Can anyone direct me to some good websites about this?

You can't learn programming in a read only manner. There is no substitute
for "hands on" experience. Only *after* acquiring this kind of experience
you can learn more by perusing more experienced programmers' code.

Dan

 

[Default User]

AFAIK, it *could* (maybe I'll endeaver to start one), but none
have (or perhaps there are a few I'm unaware of).

I'm sure one could. An example from another language (PHP), the on-line
manuals at http://php.net are fantastic, no book needed for that. Of
course, the manuals were created by and are maintained by the language
designers.

I haven't seen any on-line resources for C that compare to that or a
good C book.



Brian Rodenborn

 

[Peter Pichler]

AFAIK, it *could* (maybe I'll endeaver to start one), but none
have (or perhaps there are a few I'm unaware of).

OK, make it "no online tutorial has replaced a good book yet"