Want to learn C
Rony Yeo
i want to learn c language but i do not have any experience with
programming language.
can someone give me Advice, What kind of book shoul i buy....
p.s I haven't somathing proigrammiert.
If you guy want to help me please mail to me
0014...@pool.bth.rwth-aachen.de
thank you
Manny Roque
once you're done with those two books. Check them out at amazom.com
--
Sincerely,
Manny Roque
URL: <http://ophir.frcc.cccoes.edu/~mroque>
James Hu
>Hai guys,
>i want to learn c language but i do not have any experience with
>programming language.
>can someone give me Advice, What kind of book shoul i buy....
>p.s I haven't somathing proigrammiert.
>
>
>If you guy want to help me please mail to me
>
>
>0014...@pool.bth.rwth-aachen.de
>
>
>thank you
If you have never programmed before and you want to learn C, I really
recommend that you attend a class. I think a structured environment
is really the best way to learn something that you have no inkling
about.
If you have had some programming experience in anything (BASIC, ASM,
FORTRAN, Pascal), you can start with a basic programming book on C,
and skip through material you already understand, but using the book
to teach you the syntax you need to write a useful program.
I find "The C Programming Language", 2nd Edition, by Brian Kernighan
and Dennis Ritchie an indispensible guide (though, it will be showing
its age when C9X finally gets ratified).
Many people recommend "C Programming: A Modern Approach" (ISBN
0-393-96945-2) (thanks Dann!). The author's name escapes me at the
moment (King?).
--
James C. Hu <j...@cs.wustl.edu> Computer Science Doctoral Candidate
http://www.cs.wustl.edu/~jxh/ Washington University in Saint Louis
>>>>>>>>>>>>> I use *SpamBeGone* <URL:http://www.internz.com/SpamBeGone/>
Will Rose
: On Sat, 12 Dec 1998 11:15:56 +0100, Rony Yeo <0014...@pool.bth.rwth-aachen.de> wrote:
: >Hai guys,
: >i want to learn c language but i do not have any experience with
: >programming language.
: >can someone give me Advice, What kind of book shoul i buy....
: >p.s I haven't somathing proigrammiert.
: >
: >
: >If you guy want to help me please mail to me
: >
: >
: >0014...@pool.bth.rwth-aachen.de
: >
: >
: >thank you
: If you have never programmed before and you want to learn C, I really
: recommend that you attend a class. I think a structured environment
: is really the best way to learn something that you have no inkling
: about.
: If you have had some programming experience in anything (BASIC, ASM,
: FORTRAN, Pascal), you can start with a basic programming book on C,
: and skip through material you already understand, but using the book
: to teach you the syntax you need to write a useful program.
: I find "The C Programming Language", 2nd Edition, by Brian Kernighan
: and Dennis Ritchie an indispensible guide (though, it will be showing
: its age when C9X finally gets ratified).
: Many people recommend "C Programming: A Modern Approach" (ISBN
: 0-393-96945-2) (thanks Dann!). The author's name escapes me at the
: moment (King?).
K N King. The other recommendation is usually Dietel and Dietel,
C how to program (2nd ed.), ISBN 0-13-226119-7. I prefer King,
but they both seem pretty good.
Sunil Rao
>
> Rony Yeo wrote:
> >
> > Hai guys,
> > i want to learn c language but i do not have any experience with
> > programming language.
> > can someone give me Advice, What kind of book shoul i buy....
> > p.s I haven't somathing proigrammiert.
> >
> > If you guy want to help me please mail to me
> >
> > 0014...@pool.bth.rwth-aachen.de
> >
> > thank you
> once you're done with those two books. Check them out at amazom.com
You're kidding, right????
--
{ Sunil Rao }
"There is no scorn more profound, or on the whole more justifiable,
than that of the men who make for the men who explain."
-- HARDY, Godfrey Harold.
Tony Rubin
misleading in some parts. I highly recommend not getting this book.
Manny Roque wrote in message <367473F4...@ophir.frcc.cccoes.edu>...
>Rony Yeo wrote:
>>
>> Hai guys,
>> i want to learn c language but i do not have any experience with
>> programming language.
>> can someone give me Advice, What kind of book shoul i buy....
>> p.s I haven't somathing proigrammiert.
>>
>> If you guy want to help me please mail to me
>>
>> 0014...@pool.bth.rwth-aachen.de
>>
>> thank you
>I recommend C for Dummies Volumes 1 and 2 by Dan Gookin. You'll be a pro
>once you're done with those two books. Check them out at amazom.com
Dan Pop
>I recommend C for Dummies Volumes 1 and 2 by Dan Gookin. You'll be a pro
>once you're done with those two books.
A pro dummy, maybe :-)
Dan
--
Dan Pop
CERN, IT Division
Email: Dan...@cern.ch
Mail: CERN - EP, Bat. 31 1-014, CH-1211 Geneve 23, Switzerland
Steven Yik
Tony Rubin wrote:
> I read C for Dummies Volume 1 and found it to be horrible and very
> misleading in some parts. I highly recommend not getting this book.
>
> Manny Roque wrote in message <367473F4...@ophir.frcc.cccoes.edu>...
> >Rony Yeo wrote:
> >>
> >> Hai guys,
> >> i want to learn c language but i do not have any experience with
> >> programming language.
> >> can someone give me Advice, What kind of book shoul i buy....
> >> p.s I haven't somathing proigrammiert.
> >>
> >> If you guy want to help me please mail to me
> >>
> >> 0014...@pool.bth.rwth-aachen.de
> >>
> >> thank you
> >I recommend C for Dummies Volumes 1 and 2 by Dan Gookin. You'll be a pro
Dan Pop
>I read C for Dummies Volume 1 and found it to be horrible and very
>misleading in some parts.
Did you expect anything else from a book written from dummies? :-)
Anthony
down-to-earth terms and humor that is actually funny. Just read the customer
reviews on Amazon.com.
Tony Rubin wrote:
> I read C for Dummies Volume 1 and found it to be horrible and very
Ian Hay
>
> C for Dummies is the best C book I have ever read.
Then one can infer that the number of books beyond "C for Dummies"
you've read is zero?
> Tony Rubin wrote:
>
> > I read C for Dummies Volume 1 and found it to be horrible and very
> > misleading in some parts. I highly recommend not getting this book.
--
--------------------------------------------------------
Ian R. Hay <mailto:ian...@sympatico.ca>
Toronto, Canada <http://www3.sympatico.ca/ian.hay/>
*** Update -- visit my swanky, re-designed webpage ***
Linuxing about since June 21, 1998 <Redhat 5.1 - 2.0.35>
--------------------------------------------------------
Enki
>
> C for Dummies is the best C book I have ever read. Dan Gookin uses
> down-to-earth terms and humor that is actually funny. Just read the customer
> reviews on Amazon.com.
>
>
> > I read C for Dummies Volume 1 and found it to be horrible and very
> > misleading in some parts. I highly recommend not getting this book.
> >
> > >Rony Yeo wrote:
> > >>
> > >> Hai guys,
> > >> i want to learn c language but i do not have any experience with
> > >> programming language.
> > >> can someone give me Advice, What kind of book shoul i buy....
> > >> p.s I haven't somathing proigrammiert.
> > >>
> > >> If you guy want to help me please mail to me
> > >>
> > >> 0014...@pool.bth.rwth-aachen.de
> > >>
> > >> thank you
> > >I recommend C for Dummies Volumes 1 and 2 by Dan Gookin. You'll be a pro
> > >once you're done with those two books. Check them out at amazom.com
> > >--
> > >Sincerely,
> > >
> > >Manny Roque
> > >URL: <http://ophir.frcc.cccoes.edu/~mroque>
DANGER WILL ROBINSON
DANGER
C for Dummies is absolutely ANSI NON-compliant
but it is helpful for the basics
Graeme Fenwick
>C for Dummies is absolutely ANSI NON-compliant
>but it is helpful for the basics
Basics of what? Sounds like trouble to me- why would you want to start off
learning code that's going to break as soon as you port it over to another
OS/compiler?
Even worse, because you're still not very experienced with C, and you've
gained all your knowledge from this book (*), there's a fair chance that you
won't even know why it's broken... "But C's portable... must be my code or
the compiler!".
And once you've found out why your code isn't transporting well, you've got
the task of unlearning all that ropey knowledge.
The only basics a non-ANSI book will teach you are the basics of a
particular compiler! Surely it's better to learn the standard stuff first-
that way you'll know what's portable, and what isn't.
(*) As I haven't read C for Dummies, it would be unfair of me to assume that
it doesn't point out non-standard code. That still wouldn't justify the
inclusion of a lot of it in a beginners book though- "You don't need to
bother making your code portable- everyone out there uses Windows 98 and
Borland anyway..."
Yuk!
============================================
Graeme Fenwick | gfen...@BYESPAMprimex.co.uk
"Please remove BYESPAM filter when replying by mail"
-- WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Hamlet.
Neil
pro
>> > >once you're done with those two books. Check them out at amazom.com
>> > >--
>> > >Sincerely,
>> > >
>> > >Manny Roque
>> > >URL: <http://ophir.frcc.cccoes.edu/~mroque>
>WARNING WARNING
> DANGER WILL ROBINSON
> DANGER
>
>but it is helpful for the basics
This may be a little pointless now but I would recommend Complete Amiga C
which despite the name teaches mostly straight ANSI stuff and is bloody
straightforward & easy to follow - if you've got an Amiga all the better.
BTW, the book is now out of print due to an evil licencing explosion but if
you can get hold of it second hand then that would be nice.
Dexter Milhouse
Days", "Become a C programmer with no effort". They are, in my opinion, a
waste of money. If you are serious about programming, I recommend the more
acedemic type books. For me, the most highly useful book on C programming was
"The C Programming Language: Second Edition" by Kernighan and Ritchie. It
starts out simply and gets you into more advanced topics quite soon. The
practice exercises are good and they get you thinking about the concepts
covered. There is also a reference manual at the end of the book which covers
a lot of the standard library functions and tools. don't let the publication
date fool you, 1988, its still an excellent resource...
Regards, Mdexter
Michael Kat
'The C Programming Language' (Kernighan & Ritchie)
'C:How To Program' (Deitel & Deitel)
Read the faq, it has a list of useful resources.
Michael
Jason Wade Powers
author = Steven C. Lawlor
PLus, there are tons of tutorials online that you should check out.
Jason
OIdcoyote
anything.
Sunil Rao
>
> The c for dummies code worked on more and different compilers for me than
> anything.
It also happens to be more broken than the code found in many, many
other books. Of course, if all your books puported to teach you some
sort of compiler-specific dialect of C, then how could you expect
anything different?
--
{ Sunil Rao }
"From life's dawn it is drawn down,
Abel is Cain's brother and breasts they have sucked the same."
- HOPKINS, Gerard Manley, in "The Wreck of the Deutschland".
OIdcoyote
found that his book gave me an important toe hold so that now I can learn more.
If his code is broken why was it so much more understandable to a newbie than
other books and why did his programs work on the three compilers I had.
Ben Pfaff
Well, if your three compilers are all for the same environment that
Dan Gookin used, then that's understandable. However, many people
want to write code that will work anywhere, not just in one particular
OS. These people want to learn ANSI C, not some environment's "C", so
they'd be well advised to get a book that teaches ANSI C.
--
"Large amounts of money tend to quench any scruples I might be having."
-- Stephan Wilms
Please: do not email me copies of your posts to comp.lang.c
do not ask me C questions via email; post them instead
Sunil Rao
>
> I am an absolute beginner. I think thats who Dan Gookin was writing for.
Fair enough.
> I
> found that his book gave me an important toe hold so that now I can learn more.
> If his code is broken why was it so much more understandable to a newbie than
> other books
There are two different issues here - both very important. One is
writing style - Gookin has a very chatty style which can be appealign if
the subject matter is totally new to you. The other, which is IMHO more
important, is accuracy of code. Gookin does not know C - from what I've
seen of "C for Dummies" - and some of the things he recommends are
positively dangerous. In general, chatty books aren't the best choice of
book to learn something like C from - the fact that the writing style of
the author is good can be very misleading indeed. There's this other
writer named Herbert Schildt whose readers have the same problem - only
Schildt writes many more books; thankfully he's moved on to mauling C++
and Java now.
> and why did his programs work on the three compilers I had.
That's pure coincidence. If you learn enough C to be able to understand
the C standards document, you'll see that the standard makes no
guarantees about the behaviour of functions under certain circumstances.
If you post your code, I'm sure somebody here will be able to name a
compiler and system on which the code will not work as you might expect.
--
{ Sunil Rao }
"A boiled egg, you see, is not merely an egg that has been boiled.
It is a self-contained package, an irresistible alliance, of
violence and nursery rhymes. To get into it, you must destroy it."
- Terry Durack in "The Independent on Sunday", as quoted in
"Pseuds Corner" of "Private Eye" magazine!
Kelsey Bjarnason
No, no, don't suggest that to a newbie. Several of the regulars here treat
such questions not as an opportunity to instruct, but as an opportunity to
browbeat; the last thing you want is to send some poor defenseless newbie
unarmed into a lion's den.
Ben Pfaff
I see your point, but a starting point in a dificult subject is a rare and fine
thing.
You should really quote the post you are responding to, so that people
who don't read every message can tell what you're talking about.
--
(supporter of the campaign for grumpiness where grumpiness is due in c.l.c)
james
inaccuracy. What I have not seen is specific examples of such. As a
beginner, I can only judge a text by how complete it seems to be. By this I
mean that many examples are given to illustrate what is correct and what is
not. This has been my experience with books by Herbert Schildt. Of course,
as a beginner, I am not in a position to evaluate the validity of these
examples. I have looked at several texts and most start in the middle and
scatter from that point. This approach is almost impossible to follow. If
you have any recommendations for texts on C or C++, I would appreciate it
very much.
James
OIdcoyote
Craig Franck
>If his code is broken why was it so much more understandable to a newbie than
>other books
Whether code is broken or not rarely impacts on its readability.
I took a quick look today at his book, and several questionable
examples could have been fixed-up without confusing the reader.
My experience with people who invoke iffy-defined behaviors all
over the place is that they don't know any better.
>and why did his programs work on the three compilers I had.
Luck. The author may be unkowningly targeting certain platforms
or compilers. Also, "work" is a relative term in software. Short
example programs that do damage and then end quickly can seem to
work. I have some buggy examples that have to be run 10 or 20
times before they start rendering my system unstable.
--
Craig
clfr...@worldnet.att.net
Manchester, NH
The label "man" has no connection to the act of providing
the syntax of a command, or in providing a discription of
a command. -- Scott N*dds
Alex...@scitex.com
oidc...@aol.com (OIdcoyote) wrote:
(defending "...for dummies" book because of its easy style)
> I see your point, but a starting point in a dificult subject is a rare and
> fine thing.
>
concepts is a lot more difficult task then to learn correct stuff from
the very beginning. The probem with many books of that sort is that the
style is easy, clear and convincing - the only problem is that the content
is often erroneous.
Regards,
Alex Krol
Disclaimer: I'm not speaking for Scitex Corporation Ltd
-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own
Ian Hay
>
> I've seen a lot of people slamming authors like Herbert Schildt for
> inaccuracy. What I have not seen is specific examples of such.
http://www.plethora.net/~seebs/c/c_tcr.html and
http://www.lysator.liu.se/c/schildt.html
are two whole pages of such examples. Enjoy.
I.
--
--------------------------------------------------------
Ian R. Hay <mailto:ian...@sympatico.ca>
Toronto, Canada <http://www3.sympatico.ca/ian.hay/>
Sunil Rao
>
> I've seen a lot of people slamming authors like Herbert Schildt for
> beginner, I can only judge a text by how complete it seems to be. By this I
> mean that many examples are given to illustrate what is correct and what is
> not. This has been my experience with books by Herbert Schildt. Of course,
> as a beginner, I am not in a position to evaluate the validity of these
> examples. I have looked at several texts and most start in the middle and
> scatter from that point. This approach is almost impossible to follow. If
> you have any recommendations for texts on C or C++, I would appreciate it
> very much.
If you're talking about K&R 2 - do bear in mind that it assumes that you
already know howto program - i.e you're already a good programmer in
some language and are trying to transfer your skills. Tbe first chapter
is meant primarily for such people, as the preface makes very clear.
Kelsey Bjarnason
>I've seen a lot of people slamming authors like Herbert Schildt for
>inaccuracy. What I have not seen is specific examples of such.
[snips]
The most obvious is his use of "void main()". main is defined by the C
language standards to return int, not void, not double, not some
user-defined structure. int, nothing more, nothing less.
Now, 'tis true that many compilers will happily eat a void main and produce
perfectly good applications as a a result - but they're not required to; as
soon as undefined behaviour is invoked, the effects are, well, undefined,
and can include anything from application crashes to causing Elvis to come
back to life and start singing at you.
It's even legal, although I don't imagine an implementation that did this
would last too long, for an implementation to note that you're using "void
main" or some other undefined behaviour and, instead of running your
application, search out every .c file on your system and rewrite them all so
that when run, they all display "Learn to program, you snivelling weenie"
instead of what they were originally intended to do.