Learn C The Hard Way

Post by roel_v » Sun, Jul 03, 2011, 2:19 PM UTC

cturner wrote: post #161

ramidarigaz wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many of the friends I made in my CS classes were terrible with pointers. I never really understood why they didn't grasp pointers, but it was a major stumbling block for them in C/C++

I never really understood why they didn't grasp pointers The root of the problem is the language designers' loose use of star. "star something" is contained in a phrase that means one thing at declaration, "star something" has a different meaning the rest of the time. #include void eg(int i) { int *j = &i; // "huh? Put the address of i into *j?" *j = *j + 1; printf("%d\n", *j); } int main() { eg(4); } With more detai…

  int *j = &i;

   int* j = &i;

Post by rimantas » Sun, Jul 03, 2011, 3:18 PM UTC

rat wrote: post #169

gregjor wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Go language tutorial and examples look right at home alongside K&R. Likewise jQuery and other Javascript libraries, where terseness is valued due to bandwidth rather than screen size. The idiomatic C style is so natural to me now I don't see it as a defect to fix or a game I'm playing. It's how I learned to program in C because I learned from K&R, and if they aren't the authorities I don't know who is. When I see…

"Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it." --Brian Kernighan Not to mention people aren't as smart as you debugging/understanding it. Also that code relies on the order of operations which I wouldn't recommend outside of math because it can be confusing. And it doesn't check that s…

Post by mikeocool » Sun, Jul 03, 2011, 3:37 PM UTC

Post by JoshTriplett » Sun, Jul 03, 2011, 4:37 PM UTC

angrycoder wrote: post #150

JoshTriplett wrote: post #91

When I first learned C, I did so under DOS, an environment in which you could declare a pointer to video memory, make a magic call, and start drawing graphics. I found that a memorable way to learn pointers. Sadly, doing that in the modern world requires quite a bit more setup.

You can do something similar now using SDL. In fact, unless you are blitting bitmaps or using additional libraries, it is the only way to get stuff on screen. SDL gives you a pointer that corresponds to the video memory and you stick colors into it. Here is a tutorial for using SDL for 'old school' graphics programming: http://sol.gfxile.net/gp/ Of course this would require the student to install SDL and write a make…

Post by gregjor » Sun, Jul 03, 2011, 5:32 PM UTC

rat wrote: post #169

gregjor wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Go language tutorial and examples look right at home alongside K&R. Likewise jQuery and other Javascript libraries, where terseness is valued due to bandwidth rather than screen size. The idiomatic C style is so natural to me now I don't see it as a defect to fix or a game I'm playing. It's how I learned to program in C because I learned from K&R, and if they aren't the authorities I don't know who is. When I see…

"Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it." --Brian Kernighan Not to mention people aren't as smart as you debugging/understanding it. Also that code relies on the order of operations which I wouldn't recommend outside of math because it can be confusing. And it doesn't check that s…