Thread: The best place to learn

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    The best place to learn

    I would like to know what the very best place to learn is. I don't want to buy a book or anything, I want a free online tutorial. I just tried to understand one and I learned how to do the printf, scanf, how to use *, -, +, / and that's pretty much it. I made a few little programs and figured the rest of the tutorial would be easy. But its so confusing! Maybe C is just really really hard to learn, or that tutorial just isn't very easy to understand. If you have any recommended sites/documents that would be good for a begginning C programmer, please post them. Remember, I'm not a good programmer, at all. So easy to undertand ones please!

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    C++ Developer XSquared's Avatar
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    Well, you could try the tutorials on this site.
    Naturally I didn't feel inspired enough to read all the links for you, since I already slaved away for long hours under a blistering sun pressing the search button after typing four whole words! - Quzah

    You. Fetch me my copy of the Wall Street Journal. You two, fight to the death - Stewie

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    Quote Originally Posted by XSquared
    Well, you could try the tutorials on this site.
    Is this a good place to start learning?

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    C++ Developer XSquared's Avatar
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    I just realized that all of the tutorials on this site are C++. I'm not sure about C tutorials.
    Naturally I didn't feel inspired enough to read all the links for you, since I already slaved away for long hours under a blistering sun pressing the search button after typing four whole words! - Quzah

    You. Fetch me my copy of the Wall Street Journal. You two, fight to the death - Stewie

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    Quote Originally Posted by XSquared
    I just realized that all of the tutorials on this site are C++. I'm not sure about C tutorials.
    Oh.. that sucks. Got any other good places?

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    Go to your local bookstore and browse the C books. When you find one that you like, buy it. Thats the best thing you can do.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Speedy5
    Go to your local bookstore and browse the C books. When you find one that you like, buy it. Thats the best thing you can do.
    Are you sure that is the best way to learn?

    Are "For dummies" books good for learning this computer language?

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    Books are the best way to learn. Usually tutorials on websites are made by people like us who don't write for a living and therefore don't cover the whole language. I bet you could learn all of C from many tutorials on the web but they are hard to find.

    Especially if this is your first programming language learning, books are the way to go. For dummies books aren't very good, I'd suggest actually going to the bookstore, looking in every book and finding one that you can understand and that will cover many topics. You are bound to find one.

    I know that I learnt C++ from "The Complete Reference: C++ 3rd Edition" from Herb Schildt. I bought it at the store for $40.00 and it has like 1100 pages.

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    and the hat of int overfl Salem's Avatar
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    If you dance barefoot on the broken glass of undefined behaviour, you've got to expect the occasional cut.
    If at first you don't succeed, try writing your phone number on the exam paper.

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    Hmm I am going to try some of those links to see if they help me understand a little more. If not, I will go look for a book at my local book store. When I get back on my downstairs computer, I am going to post the link to the old tutorial I was using to learn. If anyone could take the time to read through maybe some of the lessons and tell me if that tutorial was a good one and I am just stupid, or if the ones you posted are better.

    In a nutshell, I'll post the link, you guys go to it and tell me if it is a good tutorial. If no one has time to do it, I understand, but it would be greatly appreciated.

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    Alright I am now downstairs. The link is here .

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    and the hat of int overfl Salem's Avatar
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    Well I looked at the first 10 chapters, and I'm not impressed.
    It has many faults, some of them pretty serious
    1. Overuse of global variables
    2. Implicit function return types - especially main
    3. Confusion over the nature of pointers and arrays (like calling arrays pointers when they're not)
    4. Use of gets() without any advice on why is really bad
    5. Casting the return result of malloc
    6. Way too many assumptions that your compiler is a 16 bit DOS compiler
    7. Confusion over NULL (the pointer) and nul (the character '\0')
    8. All figures are missing from the text, so some explanations are useless without that context
    9. Some examples actually contain real bugs - eg int largest(int x[], int y) in chapter 9
    If you dance barefoot on the broken glass of undefined behaviour, you've got to expect the occasional cut.
    If at first you don't succeed, try writing your phone number on the exam paper.

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    Thanks so much for taking the time to read that. I can't belive you found that many things wrong lol. Out of the two links you listed in one of your earlier posts.. which is your favourite?

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    When all else fails, read the instructions.
    If you're posting code, use code tags: [code] /* insert code here */ [/code]

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