Newbie needs a little help!

Originally Posted by jubjubj

On this note, are there any book you would recommend of that you used? I was thinking "C for Dummies 2nd edition" ?

Well, I'm something of an anomally... I started off with online tutorials like
Teach Yourself C in 21 Days -- Table of Contents
(back when it was still current ) But coming from a long Pascal background, this was mostly adjustment... I already had most of the concepts.

Basically whatever you are most comfortable with, just make sure it's the newest edition... You want to learn from the C-99 standard... so you at least need a textbook from this millenium...

Try the latest edition of "The C Programming Language" by Brian W. Kernighan and Dennis M. Ritchie.

C for Dummies 2nd edition

NO!

Teach Yourself C in 21 Days -- Table of Contents

Better than "C for Dummies", but still, no.

Also, as a matter of interest, I highly doubt that that site has Pearson's (the latest publishers) blessing.

Soma

NO!

FML already started reading it. :S

Originally Posted by jubjubj

FML already started reading it. :S

I have never looked at "C for Dummies", but I did have "Programming for Dummies" out from the library for a long time. I thought it was a pretty decent reference, actually -- in fact, I've never seen a more succinct and useful description of sort algorithms (bucket, bubble, merge, quick, heap, etc.) anywhere. There was virtually no long winded tripe and great use of pseudo code and flow diagrams. Way better than 80% of online tutorials/blogs.

A lot of people seem to enjoy learning with the K&R book phantomotap recommends tho. People will show up here with the exercises, etc, and they (K&R) are the dudes who wrote the language in the first place, so they probably have some insight.

Originally Posted by MK27

I have never looked at "C for Dummies", but I did have "Programming for Dummies" out from the library for a long time. I thought it was a pretty decent reference, actually -- in fact, I've never seen a more succinct and useful description of sort algorithms (bucket, bubble, merge, quick, heap, etc.) anywhere. There was virtually no long winded tripe and great use of pseudo code and flow diagrams. Way better than 80% of online tutorials/blogs.

A lot of people seem to enjoy learning with the K&R book phantomotap recommends tho. People will show up here with the exercises, etc, and they (K&R) are the dudes who wrote the language in the first place, so they probably have some insight.

Thanks for the reassurance! I might just read both, because I'm really enjoying C for dummies, its humorous attitude keep's me engaged, as I'm not a huge fan of books. But I'll be sure to read the K&R one too since it is

"regarded by many to be the authoritative reference on C"

- Wikipedia.

Originally Posted by jubjubj

Thanks for the reassurance! I might just read both, because I'm really enjoying C for dummies, its humorous attitude keep's me engaged, as I'm not a huge fan of books. But I'll be sure to read the K&R one too since it is - Wikipedia.

But don't just read... run up the examples in your compiler and play with them as you go. Once you understand the code, move on to the next page. Reading alone does not really work with programming languages, learning is doing so if you follow the book you will learn in a reasonable order and hopefully be ready to write a few smaller things on your own when you finish.