Customer Reviews

Certified Course in C: Earn Your Certificate Through Self-Paced Instruction/Book and 2 Disk

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

 

 

Not much more that I can say. If you want to learn 'C' this is the one to get. The 'C' language is famous for a not-so-gentle syntax, but Himmel manages to make the learning process pretty painless. I finished the book and can now understand MOST of the 'C' programs that I encounter and can even write a few!

I recommend this book to anyone wanting to gain a working knowledge of the C programming language.

There is one caveat, however. You might first want to get comfortable with QBASIC or QuickBASIC before tackling C. QBASIC was included with DOS and is quick and easy to learn.

Overall, "Certified Course in C" is well worth the money spent AND you can get a certificate from University of Phoenix as visible proof of your expertise.

College dropout until I found this book. Author knew more about the design of Borland C++ and the ISO Standard C Language than hinted at in the description of the book, so this book is not for beginners. I was able to follow up this course with "Fundamentals of Computer Science I" at my local community college and then went on to earn my bachelor business degree from a private Pacific Northwest university.

The certified course in C is stream lined for those who worked in DOS or the Unix enviroment before. The compiler is very much antique, and you will have to reframe yourself from using Microsoft Windows for awhile if you wish to proceed with the course. All the review questions and answers to the exercises in each of the chapters are emulated in monochrome, and some of the questions that deal with syntex were hard to read on a "15 inch SVGA monitor". David Himmel really knows how to teach C, I just wish the course was revised for Borland's later version of Turbo C++. To his credit, he was creative in designing this course, except some of the exercises go beyond the length of the chapter without any reference to his teachings in the book. Some were challenging to say the least, but never the less, it does train the user to program in C very well. On the negative side, the course is really designed for those who can configure DOS programs to run on any IBM clone, Or users with a wealth of computer knowledge dating back over 10 years ago.

I've completed the book and earned the certificate from University of Phoenix. Now, if the author would write a book like this for C++ and Java.

This is a great book for someone, like myself, who has had very little (if any) previous programming experience.

It took me about 2 months to finish this book, studying in the evenings for a couple of hours after work. I now have a much better understanding of C and have the certificate to prove it.

Now, I only wish that Himmel would come out with the same type of book for C++.

This book helped me to learn C at my own pace and provided the opportunity to earn a certificate and course credit through the University of Phoenix. I now have the certificate and a better understanding of programming. I wish they had one like this for C++, which is my next hurdle.

I am a technical writer and NOT a programmer, but wished to learn more about programming. Armed with nothing more than a cursory knowledge of the BASIC programming language, I jumped into this book with both feet. Three months later I was ready to take the included exam and qualify for the C programming certificate from University of Phoenix.

I recommend this book to anyone who wants a self-paced guide to learning the C programming language. I especially recommend it to those wishing to move on to a language like C++.

The author, David Himmel, assumes that you have a PH.d in C programming, although the book claims it is designed for beginners. The author even failed to explain how to install the program disk into the computer's hard drive ie. vague instructions into how to modify the autoexec.bat on DOS. I wanted to complete the book and hopefully take the exam for a certificate in C programming with the University Of Phoenix, but I don't believe its possible with this text. This is not a knock towards the university. The author should a back seat in writing anymore C programming book.

At first, the book is easy to follow, but when it advances, it becomes very hard to follow because the author assumes you are a genius and that you will be able to "magically" make programs without guidance.

For example, in chapter 5, page 96, exercise one asks the reader to write a program in a do while function. BUT the author didn't even explain what a do while function does. I had to post messages in newsgroups in order to understand the book. There is an exam that comes along with it but it is a waste of time because it asks questions that you cannot answer by the book. For example, in the chapter 3 quiz, question number six asks "What will happen if you run this function?" A) A run-time error will occur. Well, the book doesn't explain what a run-time error is. How can the Waite Group Publishing company expect readers to pass if they can't even help the reader with the book content?

Overall, this book is sloppily organized, rushed and poorly written.

Save your money and bu