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Teach Yourself C in 24 Hours (1997)

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Re: Teach Yourself C in 24 Hours (1997)

#31

Post by kensai »

ci5er wrote: post #17
sirodoht wrote: post #3

This was one of the first books I read on C and programming I general! I remember I wasn't happy at all with it, so I gave up on it a bit after the middle. It must be pretty old.

I've never understood why anyone (in the day) would read anything other than K&R (or ANSI 89). Were those not good enough to learn C?

I really want to see K&R Third Edition which is written as perfectly as the original but updated to C11. Just to have the textbook with the modern ISO specification and latest introductions.

Re: Teach Yourself C in 24 Hours (1997)

#32

Post by akashakya »

fermienrico wrote: post #24

I think there is a fundamental problem that isn't addressed in teaching people how to code. The problem is that every single course/book talks about the tools of the trade but not the art. Most books start with: - Variables - Loops - Functions ... etc. In doing so, it is simply overloading the student with syntax memorization and conceptual overload. It bothers me so much that very few books (Kernighan) talk about WH…

I think SICP also pretty good in this regard. Thankfully it's available online for free

Re: Teach Yourself C in 24 Hours (1997)

#33

Post by ansgri »

kensai wrote: post #31
ci5er wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never understood why anyone (in the day) would read anything other than K&R (or ANSI 89). Were those not good enough to learn C?

I really want to see K&R Third Edition which is written as perfectly as the original but updated to C11. Just to have the textbook with the modern ISO specification and latest introductions.

Is C11 a plus though? It has features strongly diverging from C++ (e.g. struct initializers), and may only add confusion.

Re: Teach Yourself C in 24 Hours (1997)

#34

Post by sparkie »

p4bl0 wrote: post #9
kevincennis wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you prefer “one of the many ways to categorize languages is into buckets of either compiled or interpreted”?

No, that is also wrong. Even if you only consider compilers and interpreters (in real life there are many in-betweens: bytecode/VW, JIT, etc.), a language is not either interpreted or compiled. Maybe its reference/canonical implementation is an interpreter or a compiler, but that's all. What would stop anyone from writing a C interpreter? Or a Python compiler? Now consider OCaml, which canonical distribution comes wi…

Some languages cannot be compiled because their behavior is dependent on runtime values. An example is John Shutt's Kernel language.

Here's what Shutt has to say about the difference between interpreted and compiled languages: https://fexpr.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/interpreted-programming...

tl;dr: The choice of compiled vs interpreted is made early on and greatly affects the design of the language semantics early on.

Re: Teach Yourself C in 24 Hours (1997)

#35

Post by hamandcheese »

fermienrico wrote: post #24

I think there is a fundamental problem that isn't addressed in teaching people how to code. The problem is that every single course/book talks about the tools of the trade but not the art. Most books start with: - Variables - Loops - Functions ... etc. In doing so, it is simply overloading the student with syntax memorization and conceptual overload. It bothers me so much that very few books (Kernighan) talk about WH…

Many people aren’t looking for a resource on how to code, just need to get informed on a new language.

It’s funny, when I first started programming, I thought “why do all these resources assume I know so much?!”

now I find myself thinking, “why are they assuming I know so little.”

Re: Teach Yourself C in 24 Hours (1997)

#37

Post by icedchai »

ci5er wrote: post #17
sirodoht wrote: post #3

This was one of the first books I read on C and programming I general! I remember I wasn't happy at all with it, so I gave up on it a bit after the middle. It must be pretty old.

I've never understood why anyone (in the day) would read anything other than K&R (or ANSI 89). Were those not good enough to learn C?

I read K&R when I was 15. It was definitely good enough. Platform specific books also helped a ton. I was into the Amiga at the time - '90 or '91 or so - and you really needed extra info to do anything interesting.

Re: Teach Yourself C in 24 Hours (1997)

#38

Post by ci5er »

icedchai wrote: post #37
ci5er wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never understood why anyone (in the day) would read anything other than K&R (or ANSI 89). Were those not good enough to learn C?

I read K&R when I was 15. It was definitely good enough. Platform specific books also helped a ton. I was into the Amiga at the time - '90 or '91 or so - and you really needed extra info to do anything interesting.

Sassenrath was not a Posix guy, for sure. But the Amiga was not a common platform.

Re: Teach Yourself C in 24 Hours (1997)

#40

Post by fermienrico »

hamandcheese wrote: post #35
fermienrico wrote: post #24

I think there is a fundamental problem that isn't addressed in teaching people how to code. The problem is that every single course/book talks about the tools of the trade but not the art. Most books start with: - Variables - Loops - Functions ... etc. In doing so, it is simply overloading the student with syntax memorization and conceptual overload. It bothers me so much that very few books (Kernighan) talk about WH…

Many people aren’t looking for a resource on how to code, just need to get informed on a new language. It’s funny, when I first started programming, I thought “why do all these resources assume I know so much?!” now I find myself thinking, “why are they assuming I know so little.”

Yes, that's another problem with programming books and courses. Literally, few books talk about intermediate/advanced topics, whereas, these reference/glossary type books popup every week on Amazon.
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