Thread: Learning with old C book?

  1. #1
    Registered User
    Join Date
    Oct 2009
    Posts
    1

    Learning with old C book?

    Hello everyone this is my first post in the C community as I have just started an interest in the C language and I come to my first question, I picked up an old C book from my uncle Sams teach yourself C in 24 hours 1997 Edition what I would like to know is if this book is to outdated and not good for learning? have to many things changed or is it still possible to learn from this book?

  2. #2
    Make Fortran great again
    Join Date
    Sep 2009
    Posts
    1,413
    Very possible...you'll need to learn about what the 1999 C standard adds though.

  3. #3
    spurious conceit MK27's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2008
    Location
    segmentation fault
    Posts
    8,300
    I used that book and it was not so long ago. I can't be sure what edition it was, but I am pretty sure that yours will be okay.

    The C99 stuff is not essential, and very simple, so don't worry about that for now.
    C programming resources:
    GNU C Function and Macro Index -- glibc reference manual
    The C Book -- nice online learner guide
    Current ISO draft standard
    CCAN -- new CPAN like open source library repository
    3 (different) GNU debugger tutorials: #1 -- #2 -- #3
    cpwiki -- our wiki on sourceforge

  4. #4
    Malum in se abachler's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2007
    Posts
    3,195
    C99 wasnt finalized until 99, but 99% of it was fixed by 1997. Engineers just spend a lot of years arguing over whther the proposed standard was the best way to do it. Most books at the time taught the proposed standard. I have a reference book on the proposed standard published in 1994. ISBN 0-471-06565-X
    Last edited by abachler; 10-02-2009 at 11:01 AM.

  5. #5
    ATH0 quzah's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2001
    Posts
    14,826
    C99 didn't really do anything useful. It gave us the ability to scatter variables around willy-nilly, and it lets us have arrays whose dimensions are set via some varaible. But other than that, not a whole lot that matters.



    Quzah.
    Hope is the first step on the road to disappointment.

Popular pages Recent additions subscribe to a feed

Similar Threads

  1. A good C++ Reference book
    By tiachopvutru in forum C++ Programming
    Replies: 5
    Last Post: 05-13-2008, 04:47 PM
  2. Array error learning from a book
    By cjohnman in forum C Programming
    Replies: 2
    Last Post: 05-05-2008, 08:28 AM
  3. new book about game programming using DirectX
    By Carlos in forum Game Programming
    Replies: 0
    Last Post: 09-20-2005, 08:30 AM
  4. Can't display book and borrower's details.
    By grscot in forum C++ Programming
    Replies: 0
    Last Post: 05-02-2003, 10:18 AM
  5. Learning C++ via a C book?
    By R@m0n in forum C++ Programming
    Replies: 5
    Last Post: 02-08-2002, 11:16 AM