Customer Reviews

C Programming

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

 

 

C is still with us. Despite the attention lavished on more recent languages, like Java and C#, knowledge of C is a de facto requirement in many programming jobs. Whether you are in a unix or Microsoft environment. Now C has scarcely changed in 20 years. But the difference between this book and C texts then is the visual programming environment. The authors talk up this aspect, to aid your programming. The book discusses using a text editor or IDE to write the code. But this book is written for the beginner. All the code examples are short. None over 100 lines, as far as I can tell. So the power of an IDE is really not needed. What would be useful is a text editor that can colour highlight keywords. Like vim, which is an enhanced version of vi.

In other words, if you want to use this book, you don't need to run out and get some fancy IDE. The real power of those arises when you want to develop large code bases.

The authors write clearly, and do supply good examples. But sadly, the book lacks problem sets. I do realise that this is true of most computer books. But for many of those, they discuss subjects that may be hard to design useful problems, because of the sheer complexity of the systems under consideration. But for a beginning book in C, it is possible and preferable to supply many problems. And also easy to do so. Essentially, simple parsing and numerical analysis problems.

The best way for the reader to learn the language is to have problems to tackle. Learn by doing. All the discussion in the book about analysing the examples is fine. But not enough. I also went to the companion URL given in the book. No problem sets there, either. Perhaps this can be rectified?

This is a case where some good content was obscured by inappropriate style and formatting. The format of the visual quick start guide series is two have two columns on what is already a fairly thin page. One column is explanation for the screenshot on the other side. That works great for learning about Powerpoint but isn't so great for basic C, which is mainly text. The screenshots just waste space and the code in the explanation side has to be so compressed that it is very tough to follow.

As an alternative you should try O'Reilly's Practical C, or Bruce Eckel's Thinking in C++.

I own two other books by Larry Ullman and am nothing but pleased with them; however, this one was rather disappointing. The coverage is overly simplistic, shallow and lacks substance. The authors also "stroke out" in the pointers section --which is a bastion of C programming. I suppose it's "fine" as a dumbed-down introductory text, but for anyone with even a little programming background this book is useless or even laughable. Definitely not one of his better ones.

The author did a fine job introducing key C programming concepts and illustrate them using simple well-explained code samples.

However, the book just doesn't cover enough depth and breadth about useful C topics for this book to be a keeper. I am not sure about the intended audience. Computer Science students should definitely get more serious books like C Primer to learn in-depth about the C programming language, whereas developers from other languages should get more advanced books like Expert C Programming, Pointers on C to start 'Thinking in C' and get more bang for the buck.

I think this book is a good buy only for those looking for a job interview that requires C knowledge and you have only a weekend to prepare for it ;)

I needed to learn to program in C for my job. Unfortunately I was unable to find any community college or other in-person type courses that taught C programming. I spent several months struggling trying to learn C through Element K and other online resources. Having previously used the Visual Quickstart series to learn HTML, I finally purchased the C Programming Visual Quickstart Guide. It was the best purchase I have made in a long time! The two column format is FAR easier to follow than the traditional single column approach. The examples teach the content very specifically by highlighting (in bold) the relevant code in the scripts found on the right-hand side of the page. I am learning to program in C quickly and easily. I wish I had bought the book in the first place!

It is a wonderful Introduction to C!!!

I have seen many other books dealing with programming, but this is definitely the best.

Even for an almost absolute beginner like me this book presented a format, a style and a quality to get understand pretty easy. For PC and Mac users alike; and the given examples work - what in most books it is not the case!

I wish the authors would write a book about Objective - C in the same style!

Amazing that there so few books about programming and programming languages which deal the subject in a didactically and thorough method without the need having learned three languages before and without having a 10 years programmers experience

- a be on a mac-

thanks so much to the authors!!!

If you wanted to get up to speed with C without having to read thousands of pages in order to understand one concept then this book does a fantastic job. Good book to start on and i would recommend it to anyone!!

Co-written by Larry Ullman and Marc Liyanage (professional trainers of software engineers), Visual Quickstart Guide: C Programming is a text specifically intended for beginning to intermediate-level programmers who need to assimilate the basics of programming in C as swiftly as possible. Using a visual, picture and example-centered approach to show how to perform basic tasks, C programming eschews long-winded passages for direct results and an easy-to-follow system for immediately looking up what one most needs to know. Individual chapters expertly and accessibly address the basics of data types, control structures, creating one's own functions, managing memory, working with strings, installing and using C tools, and much more. Visual Quickstart Guide: C Programming is an absolute "must" for students or professionals who need to learn or refresh their knowledge of C and have little time to spare.