Customer Reviews

C by Example (Cambridge Computer Science Texts)

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At first glance you may easily dismiss this book; featuring a rather dull cover; size that is dwarfed by the more "popular" C books - do not be fooled! This is an excellent text for learning about the C language.

Admittedly, if you're new to programming in general, then this book may seem a little difficult. For instance the first chapter launches straight into a discussion of C idioms: keywords, variables, operators etc. If these are foreign to you I would recommend you also buy an introductory programming text, then return to this book when you understand these concepts.

These assumptions aside, Kalicharan clearly and concisely discusses control structures and arrays, functions, character handling, data types, input/output and more. The concepts of each chapter are thoroughly explained and incorporated into numerous programming examples.

Indeed this is one of the strongest points of the book. In particular I liked the way Kalicharan introduces the three programming constructs; conditional execution, looping and iteration first, BEFORE discussing for example, the printf statement like most other C books do - which can be highly confusing to the novice C programmer. (Kalicharan leaves it until chapter 9). Thus a strong grounding in the fundamentals of programming is emphasised from the very start and is a consistent theme revisted throughout the book.

Unlike other C books, Kalicharan gives a brilliant discussion of pointers. What is dismissed as "too hard" in other texts is covered with ease and again, numerous examples to illustrate. For this chapter alone, one should buy this book.

Following the chapter on pointers is a good introduction to "advanced" data structures, linked lists and binary trees. These are left out of most other C books, bar those dealing with data structures specifically (university texts etc) but it is here that the power of the C language becomes apparent.

Topping off the book is a chapter in file handling. Text and binary files are discussed.

The range of topics, clarity of expression and *working* examples (I compiled every program in the book without error...) makes this book an essential addition to any C programmer's library. I hope another book from this talented author is on the way soon! (How about Java or C++?)

This book gets the C beginner understanding complex data structures quickly. It has the best description of pointers (one of the pitfalls for C beginners) I have ever read.

If I'd bought this C book first, I probably wouldn't have bought any of the others. A very good book; strongly recommended.

This book is one of the best books explaining ANSI C. It starts from the newbie level and delivers the knowledge needed for any good C programmer to survive.

The writing style is very nice, the author has done some fine efforts in keeping his threads of thought clear and easy to follow.

For people who already know C, this is also good as a quick reference and is something concise to quickly refer to, in small issues. They could also just use it to quickly refresh their knowledge of C every once in a while.

It doesn't cover any advanced topics, but it does what it promises to do, so there's nothing serious to put this book down.

This book could have helped me greatly when I was just starting to learn C programming, but it didn't... Just because I only bought it too late, at the end of my C programming days!

-Mokhtar M. Khorshid

I had Noel Kalicharan (UWI) for my Year 1 programming. Used many of the books he wrote and can vouch for the calrity and ease of use of his books, overall high quality. Even better when combined with his lectures.

A fantastic book! Its simple, clear and systematic presentation and explaination of concepts along with the abundance of examples make learning to program in C an easy task. And all the scary stuff you may have heard about pointers in C become mere rumours after reading the relevant chapters! An excellent book for learning and teaching.

A friend recommended this book after I complained of the difficulty of learning C, having tried more popularly recommended books. I'm glad she did, for this book made C easy and fun to learn. An excellent book, strongly recommended.

What a wonderful book, it deserves every good review. Also, it summarizes perfectly the three other books the author wrote to teach programming using C, C Programming - A Beginner's Course, C Programming - An Advanced Course, Data Structures In C. I would suggest to a beginner to start by reading those three books and then carry "C by example" in his backpack, for (as I said earlier) "C by example" summarize them perfectly. After reading this material, you won't be a beginner anymore. "C by example" is, how can I put it... AWESOME!! Lucky Chris Jaggernauth, who learned directly from the author. I heard Professor Kalicharan is thinking about writting other books, I hope all these good reviews will encourage him to write them.

I have to agree with the majority. This is the best intro to C I've read (I've read 3 or 4, including Deitel's). Talented authors are hard to come by. I felt I had to add a review, so that you can make a better choice and have an easier time learning C than I have had.

Its distinguishing characteristic is that the author weaves the threads, the bits and pieces of language syntax, in a way such that you're really building up working skills, instead of merely doing little exercises of this, and little exercises of that, without really putting the things you've learned together. By the end of the book, you'll have learned useful things and you should be able to integrate every aspect of C (pointers, data structures) into working programs, useful programs. This is achieved by presenting things in an order in a different order than usual, but in a way that's totally relevant to C. Why push data structures to the end of a book? This guy will teach you about linked lists and binary trees before he teaches file I/O. Working with files is a constant theme in this book. Makes a lot of sense, doesn't it?

The way C is taught here is the way I see the language used by professional programmers when I browse open source code repositories. Most other books are full of contrived examples that don't resemble the way real programmers do things in C.

Just remember this is not a data structures book, not a book about systems programming in Unix, not a book about a specific C library, nor any other specialized topic. This is just a book about C, which is a simple and small language, and it's the best one your money can buy.

A friend recommended this book after I complained of the difficulty of learning C, having tried more popularly recommended books. I'm glad she did, for this book made C easy and fun to learn. An excellent book, strongly recommended.

A fantastic book! Its simple, clear and systematic presentation and explaination of concepts along with the abundance of examples make learning to program in C an easy task. And the scary stuff you may have heard about pointers in C become mere rumours after reading the relevant chapters! An excellent book for learning and teaching.