Customer Reviews

Beginning C Programming

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I've taught C classes using this as the textbook and find the students generally receptive to the book. As a previous reviewer mentioned some of the things the author does (such as define main with a void return type) are not correct, and he picks up the pace of coverage significantly in difficult areas such as pointers.

If you do buy this book, buy a good reference book such as "The C Programming Language" by Kernighan and Ritchie to go with it. Many library functions are not well documented in the Horton book.

If you know nothing about C and want to pick it up on your own, this book is one of the best I've seen at making it approachable. Its few errors are just (relatively) minor annoyances.

Ivor Horton is a great writer. A friend of mine who is a guru in Unix suggested this book to me. If you are like me, learning best by studying examples, this book is a must!

I had no idea what C language was all about. After finishing with chapter 1 I had a clear idea what the structure of C language is and what I should expect to see in the rest of the book.

The examples are great if you work them out (can not learn otherwise). What I like the best is that the examples are in bold letters so that they stand out from the rest of the text. It is easier for the reader to visually keep things in order. Do I make sense?

This book makes you want to read more and more!!!

I have read several beginners books on C, including K&R's "The C Programming Language", and found Beginning C to be the best!
Beginning C is very easy to read, well organized and contains clear examples. If you really want to learn C without too much fuss, this is the book.

Mr. Horton does a fine job of providing numerous code examples throughout his book, and examples files are available from the Wrox Web site. Although the book is designed for individuals who do not have any programming experience, there are a few complex subjects that he tends to gloss over a bit (such as pointers). After leading students into the language slowly during the first few chapters, the book suddenly begins to accelerate and skips over steps in getting to certain conclusions. It would be helpful to have illustrations in some areas (there are few except for the code examples), such as when pointers are discussed (e.g., memory addresses, indirect addressing). Diehard ANSI standard programmers would probably disagree with his definition of the main procedure as void, and there is no adequate explanation of this presentation.

I found this book a great teaching guide from which to base my programming knowledge. It gives a clear explanation of everything from the very basics of the language to the more complex. By the author doing so, he provides the reader with everything needed to pursue an in depth knowledge of C. I highly recommend this book to people beginning to learn the C syntax.

I am very new to programming. I've been toying around with computers since 1985, and only dabbled in BASIC. I went on to become a lawyer, so I was never formally trained in any programming languages. Within the last year I took it upon myself to learn HTML. I then thought about leraning Java 2. Along the way I wanted to learn the Palm OS to start programming on a small platform. To do that, I discovered (the hard way) that I should have a foundation in C.

That is where Mr. Horton's book came in. Of all the books I looked at, his approach seemed most appealing to me (introduce a concept/function, show an example, explain the example STEP-BY-STEP, sprinkle in more concepts, build on examples with more examples, summarize). Mr. Horton succeeds in doing just this. While many of his examples are mathematically related (reason one for 4/5 stars), I found that I could follow along most of the time. It appeared to me that some of his sample code had a few misprints/errors (reason two for 4/5 stars), but at least he taught me well enough to recognize that!

Overall, this is a great introduction to the language. The layout of the book helps the reader to understand. It is not overwhelming. My only other gripe (reason three for 4/5 stars) is that there were times I wished Mr. Horton had given more detail to certain concepts. Just as simple example: all statements in C appear to need a ";" to end them. I only know this because the author points out several times that the ";" is required, but without explaining why. By reasoned deduction I have realized why, but it would have been nice to know that bit of important information.

Clearly, any programming language is difficult to learn for a "newbie". But if you are reasonably intelligent, you should have no problem, and this book certainly helps.

This book was pretty well organized, as well as having good excersies and a nice program to do at the end of each chapter. I still go back to this book for reference on topics that I can't quiet remember. Also this book is a great thing to have around if you don't want to study C but just want to know how C works and how to make structs and all/

when I started learning C,I found it very difficult with the popular books,as the subject was not dealt properly.Ivor horton's book made learning C really enjoyable.I strongly recommend for those who look for a headway start.I dont regret for purchasing this book,as i sometimes do.

I teach C programming to new programmers and recommend this to the students. It's a bit dated (16 bit int's, for instance) but the presentation is outstanding. Easy to read and many examples are the reasons I suggest it - but the students love it because they can get old copies for much less than a new book (Thanks, Amazon!)

The fonts and layout of this edition are in my opinion superior to the 3rd edition, making this a better book from which to learn. Ivor, if you're reading this -- go back to WROX!

This is an excelent introduction to C. It covers all of the basics of C without any long confusing code. It is very beginner friendly and has tons of easy to understand examples. Also makes a very good reference book. If you want to learn C, this is the place to start.