Thread: C For Dummies

Is C For Dummies a Booke worth buying? It is £11.99 on amazon.com and i heard its good cuz they have Java, C, C++ for dummies too, a whole set.

just wondering cuz i might buy it. let me know.

reece.

The people I know hate that book. Not a book for beginners. If you like tutorial-style books get one of the Teach Yourself C series of books.

If C++Builder for Dummies is any indication, I wouldn't waste my time. I picked it up used because there was such a lack of references for C++Builder, but it was useless.

For C there are so many choices that I wouldn't even bother with a Dummies book.

I learned C from the Teach Yourself in 21 Days book...that was before the newer series that could do it in 24 Hours... ...I'd suggest it, as well as The New C Primer Plus, which I still refer to on occasion.

Thanks for replies.

So if i was to spend a bit of money on a book, the best shot would be teach yourself C in 21 days? and that would teach more than this website does because ive finished the tutorials for C and im still stuck and dont know how to really build a program.

does the 21 days book teach OpenGL by anychance, or how to do proper interfaces using widget or whatever because i want to learn to make programs with proper layouts.

let me know please.

thanks, reece.

C for Dummies is riddled with errors, including the advocacy of utilising undefined behaviour such as fflush(stdin).

The best book for learning C is probably "The C Programming Language" 2nd edition by Brian W. Kernighan and Dennis M. Ritchie.

I would suggest getting a *good* C-only reference, and then a *good* OpenGL reference...a quick search on half.com showed many OpenGL books...I'm guessing the good ones will assume some proficiency in C...

I think it depends on how much previous experience of programming you have. 'C for Dummies' is good if you know absolutely squat - and I'm talking about not even knowing what a variable is - it's really aimed at those whom are complete beginners not only to 'C' but to programming in general.

"The C Programming Language" 2nd edition by Brian W. Kernighan and Dennis M. Ritchie. As cwr said, this is a good book, but it's difficult to learn from if your're a beginner, as it assumes previous programming knowledge to a certain extent.

Get them both