SRL Archive - C/C++ Help and Tutorials

http://www.amazon.com/Head-First-C-David-Griffiths/dp/1449399916/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&qid=1350784619&sr=8-8&keywords=head+start+c

Comments/thoughts on this book?

Stick with classics
http://www.informit.com/store/c-programming-language-9780133086225

From: nokkasiili
Stick with classics
http://www.informit.com/store/c-programming-language-9780133086225

I don't think I asked for another source. I wanted your opinions on THIS book. Thanks though.

Tbh, it's never a good idea to just ask for an opinion but rather both an opinion and a suggestion. Especially when it comes to learning a new language.

Anyway, my opinion is that O'Reilly has some good books but they are almost never enough.
They are of course good for beginning, that's for sure. An intro is what you asked for and my answer would be yes it's ok for an intro. As far as price wise, I'm not too sure of any better or worse deals so I cannot comment on that.

I'd say you were better off downloading the PDF of "C for Dummies". Now this is also for beginners and doesn't really go father than that but it is in almost every library I have been to and it's ok to start with that.

Now my recommendation is to learn from a website. Why? Because usually the code is more updated and they give a fairly thorough explanation as well as something you can compile and try out/play around with.

So yeah. I wouldn't say the book is bad, it's a great intro but for anything more than that, my answer would be no.

From: Brandon
Tbh, it's never a good idea to just ask for an opinion but rather both an opinion and a suggestion. Especially when it comes to learning a new language.

Anyway, my opinion is that O'Reilly has some good books but they are almost never enough.
They are of course good for beginning, that's for sure. An intro is what you asked for and my answer would be yes it's ok for an intro. As far as price wise, I'm not too sure of any better or worse deals so I cannot comment on that.

I'd say you were better off downloading the PDF of "C for Dummies". Now this is also for beginners and doesn't really go father than that but it is in almost every library I have been to and it's ok to start with that.

Now my recommendation is to learn from a website. Why? Because usually the code is more updated and they give a fairly thorough explanation as well as something you can compile and try out/play around with.

So yeah. I wouldn't say the book is bad, it's a great intro but for anything more than that, my answer would be no.

^ This is what I was looking for. :P Alright so you don't suggest this book for an intro why? So far from what I've read, it seems as though he's more relaxed with what he's talking about, relates it to real life situations, then thoroughly explains it. I'll download the "C for Dummies" and check it out, thanks. What do you suggest getting into after an "intro" material, if anything at all?

Well in my opinion, learning any language is very easy as long as you get teh basic concept, for example after learning my first language (VBA) the rest came easily. I would recommend reading up on the foundations of programming and what it really is when you are doing something, i.e. class and object formats, as for the language, syntax is easily learnt. So instead of buying a book to learn C, just go look up the basic functions and how they work online, if you really want to spend money, then i would spend it on a nice IDE with function lookups and also a nice debugger.

But anyway, thats my opinion. Ive learnt nearly every language i know(Python, VBA, Pascal, Fortran, C++ ,C# ,Perl ,Applescript-easy but fun, BASIC and various others) once you get the idealism behind scripting, all you need is a lookup table and you should be good to go. To be proficient at a language just takes Practice and understanding

From: Enslaved
Well in my opinion, learning any language is very easy as long as you get teh basic concept, for example after learning my first language (VBA) the rest came easily. I would recommend reading up on the foundations of programming and what it really is when you are doing something, i.e. class and object formats, as for the language, syntax is easily learnt. So instead of buying a book to learn C, just go look up the basic functions and how they work online, if you really want to spend money, then i would spend it on a nice IDE with function lookups and also a nice debugger.

But anyway, thats my opinion. Ive learnt nearly every language i know(Python, VBA, Pascal, Fortran, C++ ,C# ,Perl ,Applescript-easy but fun, BASIC and various others) once you get the idealism behind scripting, all you need is a lookup table and you should be good to go. To be proficient at a language just takes Practice and understanding

Thing is i'm not into learning a whole lot of languages, but rather getting good at a certain one. Haven't decided which yet.

still, once you get the fundementals, the rest is easy

K&R (the book nokkasiili linked) is by far the best book on C and considered the de facto standard. It's also written by the actual authors of the language so you can be pretty sure it's accurate, too. Note that the book actually assumes you got some programming experience, in case you don't I suggest you first learn a bit of scripting around here! Can't get started that much easier than that, really :)

Also I agree with Enslaved that learning multiple languages can be quite beneficial, while not taking as much time: the total time learning, for example, C and Java and Pascal is not three times the time you spent learning one language. Far from! The first language takes most time, but once you got the fundamental principles down, most of them are pretty much the same and it really helps learning your 'master' language, too. That's also why you see a lot of people knowing a multitude of languages, though they are often specialized in just one or two.

From: Markus
K&R (the book nokkasiili linked) is by far the best book on C and considered the de facto standard. It's also written by the actual authors of the language so you can be pretty sure it's accurate, too. Note that the book actually assumes you got some programming experience, in case you don't I suggest you first learn a bit of scripting around here! Can't get started that much easier than that, really :)

Also I agree with Enslaved that learning multiple languages can be quite beneficial, while not taking as much time: the total time learning, for example, C and Java and Pascal is not three times the time you spent learning one language. Far from! The first language takes most time, but once you got the fundamental principles down, most of them are pretty much the same and it really helps learning your 'master' language, too. That's also why you see a lot of people knowing a multitude of languages, though they are often specialized in just one or two.

I'm slowly mastering Pascalscript around here, and leaning into Java as fundamentals from it. So far, I've pretty much surpassed the basics of C, give or take a few. Thanks for all the feedback everyone, a lot!