<< 1 >>
Rating: 
Summary: This book...
Review: I am taking a community college class in which this book is the main textbook used. We are less than a month into the course, and I can tell it will be somewhat of a bear. I understand that the C Programming Language is not a trivial thing to learn, taking years to fully master, but with books like this, I can see why. The book begins its preface stating that it "assumes no prior programming experience in C or any other language", yet after reading perhaps six pages of the introduction, we find ourselves knee-deep in hexadecimal explanations of internal represen-tations and binary two's complement integer conversions. Which emphasizes one of my sticky points with this book: the overemphasis on clever, higher math tricks while at the same time using confusing, logically bewildering code with your occasional typo. Some of the examples this book choses to use are just plain brutal, which I simply skipped over until I found something written by a human for humans. Compounding all of this is the underlying attitude that a beginning computer science student ought to be familiar with all this high-brow stuff, and if not, then you're probably a lowly undergrad. It's not that the book is worthless, it's more like it's an ego trip that some mathematically savvy C professor wrote who isn't interested in TEACHING what he knows, just demonstrating in an obscure way that he knows a lot. Fortunately, I had previously worked through a few C tutorials on my own and read other less-mathematically-laden introductions to the language before I took this class with this book. Otherwise, my situation would have been even worse. So, if you are considering taking a college class in which this is your main book, or you are considering buying this book, be prepared to buy another book for background/additional explanations of obscure points this book glosses over, or simply for better examples. I found the Dummies series (hate the name, but the content is good) helpful, but what works for your particular learning style may be different. Good luck, and GodSpeed.
Rating:
Summary: This book...
Review: I liked this book a lot - reads well, thorough explanations. I have a previous version which I've continued to use it as a general-C-purpose reference over the years. Good overview of different areas of C programming you'll encounter in your Unix C future - if you are a beginner and willing to work thru the exercises you will be very well-grounded in the language - much more so than the Learn C in x Days type of book. It's worth taking the time to read and learn the language well.
Rating: 
Summary: Great book
Review: I liked this book a lot - reads well, thorough explanations. I have a previous version which I've continued to use it as a general-C-purpose reference over the years. Good overview of different areas of C programming you'll encounter in your Unix C future - if you are a beginner and willing to work thru the exercises you will be very well-grounded in the language - much more so than the Learn C in x Days type of book. It's worth taking the time to read and learn the language well.
Rating: 
Summary: Overall Satisfied
Review: The authors give a truly indept lesson for a person learning C with little or no prior knowledge of C/C++ programming. A background of some other language is pretty important. The authors don't waist time explaining the basics of all programming languages to you. I only really have one problem with this book. It was a little too expensive; but all college books seem to be that way. It may seem to be a little outdated (Published in 1996) but the information is still current. I have seen few in depth books written for C since that time. Most new books talk about C++ and now C#. I strongly recomend to anybody wishing to learn C++ to first read this book.
Rating:
Summary: I liked this book, and also its companion on C++
Review: This book is numb to what a student of c needs clarification and expansion on, and what is obvious. I told a friend that if this book were about donuts, it would talk incessantly about the hole, and assume the donut itself needs only a brief mention. This book is definitely not a reference. It is a beginning-to-end narrative of all topics. The examples are consistently lacking. For example, to get information on structures, one reads a series of small, piecemeal discussions of what structures do. Equal emphasis is given on, for example, the scope of structures (donut hole) as on the syntax to access a structure member in a program (donut), followed by a 3-page sample program that uses one structure in a minor way (huge donut hole). This book will not teach c on its own. At best, it will reinforce or expand on what one already knows.
<< 1 >>
| 
