Best way to learn?

[News.Individual.NET]

Books, websites? What did you learn? I'm asking so that I can learn to use
this language successfully. Sorry for the new-ness of my programming skill.

Evan

 

[Richard Heathfield]

Books,

See http://users.powernet.co.uk/eton/clc/cbooks.html for a decent list. The
first three on the list are "tutorials". Most of us here in clc prefer "The
C Programming Language", 2nd edition, but King and Deitel&Deitel are both
well-respected.

websites?

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

What did you learn?

C.

I'm asking so that I can learn to use this language successfully.

You came to the right place. We won't teach you C, but we can certainly help
you to learn it.

 

[Kevin Goodsell]

Books, websites?

Books are almost certainly the best way, but you need to be very careful
about which books. There are a *lot* of bad books out there.

Websites are practically useless for learning C. Very few online C
tutorials actually teach C. Usually they teach something that they call
C, and which is similar in some ways to C, but which is different from C
in some fundamental ways. This is simply because the authors usually
don't know or understand the language as well as they think they do. The
same can be said for the authors of the bad C books I mentioned above.
Misunderstanding of the C language is pretty wide-spread, even among
people who call themselves C programmers.

-Kevin

 

[CBFalconer]

Books are almost certainly the best way, but you need to be very
careful about which books. There are a *lot* of bad books out there.

Two absolute rules for the C newbie are: Never ever buy, nor
read, any book authored by Herbert Schildt. Never ever use
gets().

Either of those actions will ensure you never attain Paradise.

 

[Wolfgang Kaufmann]

* Thus spoke News.Individual.NET <[email protected]>:

Hallo,

Books, websites?

- <http://www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu/~ajo/faqs/acllc-c++.html#q6.1>


Wolfgang.

 

[August Derleth]

Books, websites?

A good book is "The C Programming Language", 2nd Edition by Kernighan
& Ritchie. (Also known as K&R2.) It assumes you know a bit about how
to program already (tho that isn't a hard and fast rule), and it does
move relatively quickly (faster than most tutorial books). However, it
can be used by the experienced programmer as a C reference manual long
after the basics have been grasped.

That book, in fact, is how I learned to program C. It makes a good
distinction between standard C and nonstandard C, and standard C is
what it teaches. By learning standard C first, you can find out about
nonstandard alterations to C in your own time and understand them from
a solid foundation. Plus, you can use this newsgroup only for
questions about standard C. The regulars will be annoyed if you ask
questions about nonstandard C.

Websites generally aren't good ways to learn C. For every bad book on
C (and there are numerous), there are probably a dozen bad websites.
Therefore, the only websites I'll recommend are related to books in
some way.

http://www.accu.org/bookreviews/public/ -- The Association of C and
C++ Users book reviews page. The ACCU has good reviews, and on
numerous topics, not just C and C++ programming. When the ACCU says a
book is good, or that it is crap, you can trust it.

http://www.eskimo.com/~scs/C-faq/top.html -- The comp.lang.c FAQ. This
exists in published form as well, but the website is highly usable.
Consider this an adjunct to other C references, one that answers
specific questions instead of focusing on general rules.

What did you learn?

I learned standard C, not any vendor's idea of what C should be. I'd
suggest you do the same.

I'm asking so that I can learn to use
this language successfully. Sorry for the new-ness of my programming skill.

Don't apologize for being inexperienced. We all were once, and anyone
who gives you hell about it should be ignored on general principles.