Programmers - Coding in C

[Printimus]

For those of you with established knowledge and careers in the coding/programming industry, lend me your wisdom!

As some of you may or may not be aware of, I am currently in college working towards a degree in computer sciences. As I approach the completion of the general education curriculum, I will have to start working on the nitty gritty classes of the major. The initial programming classes starts teaching students in C and I believe they can branch out and teach other languages once the initial introductory classes are out of the way. I have a vague understanding of how coding works and would be considered very new to programming.

So my question is, are there any textbooks or perhaps websites I could get a head start with learning C? I would prefer if the book could be found on amazon.com for ease of acquirement, but am willing to look outside that source.

Thank you for any and all recommendations!

 

[Mich Angel]

if I'm not totally out of it this is a good insight in starting C and it do cover C# and C++ to and it's avail both in App and paperback.

There are so many to pick from might be there is better but this do cover the basic to more advanced. : -D

https://www.amazon.com/Programming-Manuscripts-comprehensive-tutorial-Beginners-ebook/dp/B076226PHC/ref=sr_1_5?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1546619478&sr=1-5

 

[Deroth]

Have you checked out the online Microsoft Virtual Academy?

https://mva.microsoft.com/

I did the C# Fundamentals for Absolute Beginners by Bob Tabor a few years ago, I liked them and got the knowledge I was looking for at the time.

 

[Wolfy]

EDx has several excellent courses on C but they tend to be paid courses. They do offer certifications for completion though.

Like @Deroth said Microsoft Virtual Academy is a great resource as well.

Code Academy has a really good Intro to C++ course they was just posted a few weeks ago. I have not personally completed it but I have heard good things from a friend who teaches highschool Computer engineering.

 

[Printimus]

if I'm not totally out of it this is a good insight in starting C and it do cover C# and C++ to and it's avail both in App and paperback.

There are so many to pick from might be there is better but this do cover the basic to more advanced. : -D

https://www.amazon.com/Programming-Manuscripts-comprehensive-tutorial-Beginners-ebook/dp/B076226PHC/ref=sr_1_5?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1546619478&sr=1-5

Good stuff! As a kindle unlimited subscriber, this is free. Thanks!

Have you checked out the online Microsoft Virtual Academy?

https://mva.microsoft.com/

I did the C# Fundamentals for Absolute Beginners by Bob Tabor a few years ago, I liked them and got the knowledge I was looking for at the time.

I will have to delve deeper into that, looks like they offer quite a bit.

EDx has several excellent courses on C but they tend to be paid courses. They do offer certifications for completion though.

Like @Deroth said Microsoft Virtual Academy is a great resource as well.

Code Academy has a really good Intro to C++ course they was just posted a few weeks ago. I have not personally completed it but I have heard good things from a friend who teaches highschool Computer engineering.

Not really looking to pay for classes, per say, as the college courses im enrolled in will cover that aspect. Just looking for a "Programming in C for Dummies" type book.

 

[Printimus]

Have you checked out the online Microsoft Virtual Academy?

https://mva.microsoft.com/

I did the C# Fundamentals for Absolute Beginners by Bob Tabor a few years ago, I liked them and got the knowledge I was looking for at the time.

"To simplify your tech training journey, we are consolidating our learning resources and retiring Microsoft Virtual Academy in phases, beginning on January 31, 2019. Complete site retirement is scheduled for later in 2019. Check your MVA Dashboard frequently for courses you have started that are retiring. To earn your certificates of completion, be sure to finish any courses by January 31, 2019. For more learning options, check out Microsoft Learn. "
Ruh roh, i saw this at the top of their website...

 

[Mich Angel]

You're welcome. CHEERS!

 

[Xist]

It was 28 years ago that I learned C, so I'm afraid I'm not sure about recent media covering the topic of learning in C. However O'Reilly was a fantastic resource back then and so I've listed out a few of their books:

Introduction to C Programming:

http://archive.oreilly.com/oreillyschool/courses/c/Introduction to C Programming v2.pdf

Practical C Programming:

https://www.amazon.com/_/dp/1565923065?tag=oreilly20-20

In general what worked for me as a self-learner was to buy as many books as I could get my hands on, and read them all. After a while you'll notice there are many similarities between them and you can safely ignore those parts once you know them by heart. Thereafter it's easy to see the differences in each book, sometimes they have some fun tricks, sometimes one sheds insight into an area that another ignored, etc.

Good luck and have fun!

EDIT: I'm older than I thought I was.

 

[Kenlee]

If you are interested in learning C# and want a video crash course, here's a link from my earlier class. He's from Denmark so his english is not perfect, but it's 10 times more engaging for me than reading in a book. Theres a lot of videos, he shows step by step how to create a backend in C# and explains the how's and why's and he even shows you what to install and how to do it beforehand on both Windows & Mac. He creates a simple app and keeps expanding on it (you can try it yourself while watching the videos, so in the end you will actually have a functional REST API that you can expand upon) - he also has guides for building a frontend with Angular.

Part 1, C# basics and first web app:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PL8jcXf-CLpxpN2bB-MJ1xm_TSWRsCpu_l&v=1I5mAjU64bM



Part 2, expanding on the first app and creating REST API:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IW7Ix6fAqw&list=PL8jcXf-CLpxq9l61pEwo1G9WmaThcReBS

 

[Printimus]

It was 28 years ago that I learned C, so I'm afraid I'm not sure about recent media covering the topic of learning in C. However O'Reilly was a fantastic resource back then and so I've listed out a few of their books:

Introduction to C Programming:

http://archive.oreilly.com/oreillyschool/courses/c/Introduction to C Programming v2.pdf

Practical C Programming:

https://www.amazon.com/_/dp/1565923065?tag=oreilly20-20

In general what worked for me as a self-learner was to buy as many books as I could get my hands on, and read them all. After a while you'll notice there are many similarities between them and you can safely ignore those parts once you know them by heart. Thereafter it's easy to see the differences in each book, sometimes they have some fun tricks, sometimes one sheds insight into an area that another ignored, etc.

Good luck and have fun!

EDIT: I'm older than I thought I was.

Awesome sauce! Thanks.

If you are interested in learning C# and want a video crash course, here's a link from my earlier class. He's from Denmark so his english is not perfect, but it's 10 times more engaging for me than reading in a book. Theres a lot of videos, he shows step by step how to create a backend in C# and explains the how's and why's and he even shows you what to install and how to do it beforehand on both Windows & Mac. He creates a simple app and keeps expanding on it (you can try it yourself while watching the videos, so in the end you will actually have a functional REST API that you can expand upon) - he also has guides for building a frontend with Angular.

Part 1, C# basics and first web app:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PL8jcXf-CLpxpN2bB-MJ1xm_TSWRsCpu_l&v=1I5mAjU64bM



Part 2, expanding on the first app and creating REST API:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IW7Ix6fAqw&list=PL8jcXf-CLpxq9l61pEwo1G9WmaThcReBS

Not sure what the main differences are between the different types of C programming, but my upcoming class focuses on C specifically, not C#. But if the languages are practically the same, I will have to give this a try.

 

[Kenlee]

Awesome sauce! Thanks.

Not sure what the main differences are between the different types of C programming, but my upcoming class focuses on C specifically, not C#. But if the languages are practically the same, I will have to give this a try.

C# is object oriented like Java where you have classes with specific tasks. It's a different way of structuring apps. Some of the code syntax is similar to C, but it's still very different afaik even though I have never done C or C++. But since you are just starting up and you only need C, I would suggest learn that first. After that you can maybe look into object oriented programming.

 

[Graptor]

It was 28 years ago that I learned C, so I'm afraid I'm not sure about recent media covering the topic of learning in C. However O'Reilly was a fantastic resource back then and so I've listed out a few of their books:

<cut details>

EDIT: I'm older than I thought I was.

Hah! Thanks @Xist, now I'm reminded of that too!

I originally learned C in college in the late 80's. I'm surprised no one has linked this yet (maybe I missed it). At the time this was the bible for the original C Language, and probably the source of the now famous "Hello, World" first program in C. Kernighan and Ritchie are the gods of C Language. I think they wrote most of it originally, as well as the original C compiler.

https://www.amazon.com/Programming-Language-2nd-Brian-Kernighan/dp/0131103628/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1546627656&sr=8-1&keywords=kernigan+and+ritchie+c+programming

Have fun!

 

[Xist]

Since you're just learning, I would stay away from other languages like C++ and C# for now.

In all honesty, I'm surprised your course is dealing with C at all, it's a legacy language that you won't ever actually want to use unless it's required for backwards compatibility in a very old system. It's ok for learning tho.

If you are given the opportunity, C# is much better than C, unless you need absolute maximum performance in which case C++ is the tool of choice.

But I digress. Though C++ and C# are syntactically similar to C, as a beginner you will only find those differences confusing and frustrating. Stick to C books if that's the language your prof requires you to learn.

 

[maynard]

search "Kernihan & Ritchie" on Amazon books

clear, concise, written by the language's inventors

 

[Radegast74]

You should check out the various online trainings, Coursera usually has free stuff but they often have start dates and don't make everything available all at once.

Udemy is still running their New Year's sale, nothing is free, but a bunch of $10 classes...check out the reviews and what the classes cover.
https://www.udemy.com/courses/search/?q=c language free&src=sac&kw=c lang

 

[Bambooza]

Since you're just learning, I would stay away from other languages like C++ and C# for now.

In all honesty, I'm surprised your course is dealing with C at all, it's a legacy language that you won't ever actually want to use unless it's required for backwards compatibility in a very old system. It's ok for learning tho.

If you are given the opportunity, C# is much better than C, unless you need absolute maximum performance in which case C++ is the tool of choice.

But I digress. Though C++ and C# are syntactically similar to C, as a beginner you will only find those differences confusing and frustrating. Stick to C books if that's the language your prof requires you to learn.

I was surprised as well it seems all of the universities near here teach java as their intro to programming. Not that learning C is a bad thing as it will teach you why things work the way they do in C# and Java.

At this point I am not sure I would worry to much about reading lots of books on C code or learning its nuances and syntax as most of the class time will be spent learning how to think about tasks after they give you a quick crash course in basic syntax.

 

[Esctasy]

Wish I was still young in college /cry

Here are my 2 cents. When you're new at programming don't be overwhelmed by the many different languages out there. Once you learn the structure of programming and how the logic flows through the coding in one language, every other language will be very easy to learn.

IMHO, C isn't a high level language in today's term and definitely isn't low level, I would place it as a medium level. It is a great place to start. As you master C, object oriented methodologies will be an easy task to tackle later on.

 

[Thugari]

@Printimus , if you have an ipad or iphone this might be up your alley.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/csc-215-c-c-programming-i/id490135826?mt=2
https://itunes.apple.com/us/course/oic-oop-in-c/id1006399925

i could do links, but its late and i am tired. sorry
anyway good luck

 

[Vavrik]

I also recommend Kernihan & Ritchie "The C Programming Language", 2nd edition. Keep it as a reference for after you graduate too. People don't understand that programming language viability is more to do with utility, and has nothing to do with age of the language. C language is the father of C++, and several other languages, and is the grandfather of Java and C#. That is why they are teaching it. You will learn the foundation of procedural programming and from there you will branch off to do whatever you want to do, including object oriented programming (OOP). Quite literally, object oriented programming is not the panacea it is made out to be by its proponents, especially if you have no experience with procedural programming. OOP has a place to be sure, but it should not be your starting point for a computer science major.

Remember this. You will not be just a programmer when you graduate. Although programming will be a large part of what you do, it will be just one of many tools at your disposal. You'll be dealing with software at a fundamentally different level than programmers in your career.

If Kernihan & Ritchie is provided by the school (that is actually likely in some schools) or if you're looking for more practical tools, then you might want to look at a book like

• Advanced C Programming by Example, by John W. Perry
• Expert C Programming: Deep C Secrets by Peter van der Linden
• Computer Systems: A Programmer's Perspective by David Bryant, Randal O'Hallaron.
• C: A Reference Manual by Samuel P. Harbison and Guy L. Steele Jr.

The three books in orange can be obtained from Amazon as a package, for a discount, I think the total is somewhere between $130-135 US. The other books are good too, it was just the package.... I like packages when I can afford them.

 

[Printimus]

C# is object oriented like Java where you have classes with specific tasks. It's a different way of structuring apps. Some of the code syntax is similar to C, but it's still very different afaik even though I have never done C or C++. But since you are just starting up and you only need C, I would suggest learn that first. After that you can maybe look into object oriented programming.

Thanks for the explanation!

Hah! Thanks @Xist, now I'm reminded of that too!

I originally learned C in college in the late 80's. I'm surprised no one has linked this yet (maybe I missed it). At the time this was the bible for the original C Language, and probably the source of the now famous "Hello, World" first program in C. Kernighan and Ritchie are the gods of C Language. I think they wrote most of it originally, as well as the original C compiler.

https://www.amazon.com/Programming-Language-2nd-Brian-Kernighan/dp/0131103628/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1546627656&sr=8-1&keywords=kernigan+and+ritchie+c+programming

Have fun!

hmm, this link only leads back to this thread..... is it broken maybe?

Since you're just learning, I would stay away from other languages like C++ and C# for now.

In all honesty, I'm surprised your course is dealing with C at all, it's a legacy language that you won't ever actually want to use unless it's required for backwards compatibility in a very old system. It's ok for learning tho.

If you are given the opportunity, C# is much better than C, unless you need absolute maximum performance in which case C++ is the tool of choice.

But I digress. Though C++ and C# are syntactically similar to C, as a beginner you will only find those differences confusing and frustrating. Stick to C books if that's the language your prof requires you to learn.

yeah the course i am taking is Introduction to Problem Solving and Algorithms, so I am assuming it is the basic of basics just to get my foot in the door.

search "Kernihan & Ritchie" on Amazon books

clear, concise, written by the language's inventors

I will def try that.

You should check out the various online trainings, Coursera usually has free stuff but they often have start dates and don't make everything available all at once.

Udemy is still running their New Year's sale, nothing is free, but a bunch of $10 classes...check out the reviews and what the classes cover.
https://www.udemy.com/courses/search/?q=c language free&src=sac&kw=c lang

While I appreciate the wisdom, I was hoping for something more book-like in nature, something I can breeze through at my own pace. I am already slated to take classes this Spring. Thank you though!

I was surprised as well it seems all of the universities near here teach java as their intro to programming. Not that learning C is a bad thing as it will teach you why things work the way they do in C# and Java.

At this point I am not sure I would worry to much about reading lots of books on C code or learning its nuances and syntax as most of the class time will be spent learning how to think about tasks after they give you a quick crash course in basic syntax.

Dually noted.

Wish I was still young in college /cry

Here are my 2 cents. When you're new at programming don't be overwhelmed by the many different languages out there. Once you learn the structure of programming and how the logic flows through the coding in one language, every other language will be very easy to learn.

IMHO, C isn't a high level language in today's term and definitely isn't low level, I would place it as a medium level. It is a great place to start. As you master C, object oriented methodologies will be an easy task to tackle later on.

Thanks for the wise words! I am just following the curriculum/degree plan for my major. And I am no youngin' ..... did 10 years in the military and am now using my G.I. Bill to go to school. It feels so weird going to school as an already established adult.

@Printimus , if you have an ipad or iphone this might be up your alley.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/csc-215-c-c-programming-i/id490135826?mt=2
https://itunes.apple.com/us/course/oic-oop-in-c/id1006399925

i could do links, but its late and i am tired. sorry
anyway good luck

No more apple products for me. I ditched that company when they started slowing down phone processors intentionally to "save the battery".

I also recommend Kernihan & Ritchie "The C Programming Language", 2nd edition. Keep it as a reference for after you graduate too. People don't understand that programming language viability is more to do with utility, and has nothing to do with age of the language. C language is the father of C++, and several other languages, and is the grandfather of Java and C#. That is why they are teaching it. You will learn the foundation of procedural programming and from there you will branch off to do whatever you want to do, including object oriented programming (OOP). Quite literally, object oriented programming is not the panacea it is made out to be by its proponents, especially if you have no experience with procedural programming. OOP has a place to be sure, but it should not be your starting point for a computer science major.

Remember this. You will not be just a programmer when you graduate. Although programming will be a large part of what you do, it will be just one of many tools at your disposal. You'll be dealing with software at a fundamentally different level than programmers in your career.

If Kernihan & Ritchie is provided by the school (that is actually likely in some schools) or if you're looking for more practical tools, then you might want to look at a book like

• Advanced C Programming by Example, by John W. Perry
• Expert C Programming: Deep C Secrets by Peter van der Linden
• Computer Systems: A Programmer's Perspective by David Bryant, Randal O'Hallaron.
• C: A Reference Manual by Samuel P. Harbison and Guy L. Steele Jr.

The three books in orange can be obtained from Amazon as a package, for a discount, I think the total is somewhere between $130-135 US. The other books are good too, it was just the package.... I like packages when I can afford them.

Fantastic! Thanks for the words of wisdom! I also like packages of books. Will definitely look into it.


I just wanted to thank everyone for all your kind words and wisdom you have shown thus far. I do apologize if I seem particularly picky, as I did not expect this much help from you all!