[Noisebridge-discuss] Seeking info about Intro to C Programming class

[Brian Morris]

To me, the advantage of K&R is that it is small and can work / review
through it quick.
It is maybe hard to find newer books which go into relevant topics which are
not huge and heavy.

For me, C++ is an advanced language to work with, tools have been developed
to make it easier to work with large projects, eg cmake and QT but not
everybody uses and there are other choices. It was the first OO language and
IMHO compromise between C and the higher level OO languages such as Java and
Python, which have become standard for learning OOP.  Also most other
languages have OO extensions.

C is close to the metal as they say and that may be kind of interesting.
Also fast. Depending on your interests you could find possibly an
application oriented book to go along with K&R. In general many langs have a
foreign function interface (FFI) for speed or hardware interface which
people mostly use C functions. So you can look there at small functions that
do specific things. To give you some motivating or interesting examples.

What is your motivation for learning C ? Mine was originally for numerical
programming (because required for a job), then later as a bridge to C++
(which I found disappointing, wish I had gone with Python).

One approach to learning a new programming language which may work for you
is to translate something. For instance take a Python function that is
central to your/ some code and rewrite it in C, simply plug it in and see if
it works, and see if it is any faster. I don't know how common this is in
Python (being new to it) but it is pretty ubiquitous in Perl (which can have
slow downs pretty bad).

On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 12:12 PM, Erik Schneider <eriktrips at gmail.com>wrote:

> Hi I'm kind of new but not entirely but enough so that I don't know if
> this is the right place to ask but since they do not have a list of
> their own that I can find:
>
> Is anyone from the Intro to C Programming class reading who could
> answer questions like could I start attending next week?
> And if yes:
> Is the class using a text or texts, and if so what is/are the text(s)?
> And is there a particular thing the class is working on for next week?
>
> If you can answer my questions but it would be more polite to email me
> the info than to use this list, then:
> eriktrips at gmail.com
>
> Thanks!
>
> Erik JM Schneider
> _______________________________________________
> Noisebridge-discuss mailing list
> Noisebridge-discuss at lists.noisebridge.net
> https://www.noisebridge.net/mailman/listinfo/noisebridge-discuss
>
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