Hi all, I am new to these parts. Anyway, I had a couple of questions that I hoped you all could help me with. Not sure if this the correct place but it seems to fit best here. When I was at uni a couple of years ago we did a fair bit of programming (though nothing too spectacular ) in Pascal, C, C++ and a microscopic amount of Java. I did rather well with Pascal and C but I went and got myself a girlfriend half way through which kinda got in the way of C++ and Java for me but just about scraped through them though. Since I came out of uni I was unsure which area of IT to persue so I ended up in a tech support job and have kind of let all my uni knowledge slip quite a bit really. I now want to get back into programming as I really enjoyed the pre-girlfriend programming I did.

Anyway, to try to cut this waffle short, I am thinking of going back in and refreshing (and hopefully vastly improving ) my C abilities and I was just wondering whether this is still advised. I notice these days that all the comp science courses seem to really be pushing OO.. mostly Java it seems. Has C become depreciated in the last couple of years? Or are they just jumping on the cool band wagon? Eventually I want to progress from C to maybe either C++ or Java because as we all know, the more you know the more desirable you are to employers. However I dont want to jump in and try to learn 3 or 4 languages all at once as in my experianced (at least for me) things can get a little confusing doing that.

Oh, being as until I start learning again, I am unsure how much of my uni knowledge I have retained. I am looking to invest in a couple of books and I see the C Programming Language by K+R is highly recommended. I am probably going to get that book but I would like to complement it with another. Do you guys have any recomendations for a companion book that caters for both beginners and experianced programmers alike? I dont want anything too noob like but by the same token, I dont want anything that you need a PHD just to be able to understand the preface....

One last question. Are there any online books for C? I have seen there are a few on C++ and Java from some really kind authors so I was just wondering whether there are any for C.

Thanks for your time