Re: Learning C Programming Language

[Glen Warner <gdwarner -at- ricochet -dot- net>]

> Fellow Tech Writers: 
> I'm a student in technical communication seeking advice on a good 
book that
> may help me learn C language on my own. I'm especially interested in 
those
> that come with compilers, as I do not have access to one. For the 
purpose of
> doing exercises in the text, do these compilers really work? How 
about books
> on Visual Basic? Any recommendations? Thanks!

Adam --

Not a book, but a "free" resource on the internet.  Check out

http://www.codewarrioru.com

The folks at Metrowerks offer free courses in C++ ("Uber C," as a 
programmer friend of mine once described it).  The catch:  they advise 
you to have their compiler ($50).  The text ("C++ Primer") is also a 
bit pricey (~$35.00).

Since CodeWarrior would be new to you, it would be a good idea to take 
the course "Introduction to CodeWarrior" before you start the C++ 
course.

Cross platform (i.e., Mac and Windows), too.

If this is too pricey, there's lots of "Teach Yourself C" books out 
there that come with CDs and compilers.

If you're a real "techie" and have no fear of Linux, the GCC compiler 
will do the trick (and has the added feature of allowing you to code 
in Objective C).

As for VisualBasic, the text book that came with my course (10 weeks 
--!) was pretty good.  It was "Programming in Visual Basic 6.0," by 
Julia Bradley and Anita Millspaugh.

Finally, for learning programming (any language), I recently posted a 
question to the Mac programmer's news groups, asking what the best 
method of learning to program was.  As you can imagine, I got a lot of 
different answers ... but the most popular one was "get a book, play 
with the examples."

My recommendation?  Get a couple books (you'll probably get a lot of 
choices in response to your post).  Play with the samples.

A little pre-sleep visualization can't hurt, either.

Hope this helps ......

--gdw
> Adam