[Noisebridge-discuss] Recommendations for learning C?

[Andy Isaacson]

On Thu, Mar 08, 2012 at 09:39:54AM -0800, daravinne wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 8, 2012 at 7:01 AM, Robert Chu <robertayoungchu at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Good morning Noisebridge Community,
> >
> > I have decided to start learning C programming and was wondering if anybody
> > could give me good recommendations on: books, videos, talks, papers, etc. So
> > far I am studying from the book Sam's Teach Yourself C in 21 Days Sixth
> > Edition.
>
> I have The C Programming Language, 2nd Edition, by Kernighan and Ritchie.

That's a pretty great book.  It's concise and very accurate.  (For many
years the 1st Edition was the *definition* of the C language.)  The
programming exercises are a good workout, too -- even after working in
the area for many years I still learn things by going back and doing an
exercise or two every once in a while.

I also like Kernighan and Pike's "The Practice of Programming", although
it's hard to get the most out of it before having worked in C for a
year or two.

My original programming textbook was Dietel and Dietel's "How to
Program"; they have both C and C++ (and nowadays Java I think!)
editions.  If you learn well from a standard American-school-style
textbook, this is a pretty good choice.  It's more verbose and gives a
little more hand-holding than K&R.

Raymond's "The Art of UNIX Programming" is another good book that will
give some motivation to some of the bits of C that can be hard to pick
up in a generic programming language course.

Good luck!
-andy