Customer Reviews

C How to Program (3rd Edition)

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Anyone in his first year of engineering/Computer science is haunted by the nightmare of writing programs.The experience is common....the first time I saw a program(which seemed as cryptic as some enigmatic script from paleolithic era)....I said to myself...."GOD--WHY ME??".Our text "C Program design for engineers " didn't help much.

Then I lay my hands on this wonderful wonderful book.The best thing about this book is that it does not assume any prior programming experience on the reader's part.Another feature that I found extremely helpful is the use of LIVE CODE approach...which technically shows you the output for every program.The treatment is quite exhaustive and subsequent chapters are based on concepts covered in previous chapters.Once you are through with C....the book gradually introduces object oriented programming with C++ and then Java.The point is, even though languages like c++ and Java have more functionality than C...you need to learn C?WHY?....well if not for anything else, then for appreciating the features of an Object oriented language like Java.Trust me...I learnt Java first.....and it always lingered in my mind, WHY an object oriented language?After learning C...I know the answer.

One piece of advice, if you are learning programming outside your school curricula or on your own......you are better off with a book like Ivor Horton's Begining C.

By the way, just get one Deitel Book, don't buy the same author's Java-how to program, if you already own a copy of C-how to program.....because they use the same programs in all their books just changing the syntax.....more than half of these books is the same....so use that money to get a different author's perspective.:)

This book is the best book on programming I have ever seen. If you want to learn how to program, and I mean REALLY program, not just fooling around with little useless "hello world" type programs, then do yourself a favor, buy this book! This is the most complete treatment of programming that I have ever seen. It goes from the beginning, assuming no prior knowledge of programming, and by the middle of the book, you will be writting your own virtual computer, as well as a computer language and a compiler for it! The first 14 chapters are on C and focuses on structured programming. This is the most comprehensive treatment I have ever seen on the subject. It shows you how to 'design' software, and how to emplement and design useful algorithms to solve programming problems. Also the book is filled with highlighted tips on how to increase the performance of your programs, how to avoid common errors, software engineering tips, and how to write pretty looking code. Most books never even mention any of these things, and only contain useless snippits of code to show you the syntax. Unfortunatly, knowing the syntax of a language does not make you a programmer. The next ten or so chapters of the book introduce object oriented programming with C++. An intense treatment of the subject, while staying easy to comprehend and follow. And the last ten to 15 chapter cover gui programming with Java. You will learn how to write real multimedia applications! To make a long story short, this book is great in every way. All of its sections tie in nicely with each other and it flows well and easily. Also, the numerous examples tips, and excersises are great. Where most books make you do silly and useless excercises, here is one of the excersises from this book for example, in chapter 30 excercise 20 you have to write a complete gui drawing application. This just shows you how indepth this book goes. This book will teach you how to program. And the stuff you learn in this book can be applied to any other programming language. This book doesnt aim at just teaching you C, it aims at teaching you how to program, using C, c++ and Java as a tool. There is a big difference. Thanks Deitle & Deitle!

This book was recommended by a professor of mine in my Master's program and I found it very helpful. The way the authors tie in both C++ and JAVA into the text is great for those that learning in a "real world" environment. The examples are easy to follow and understand what is going on. I would recommend this to anyone looking to get a handle on C and then move into the other languages.

This book is used to teach the intro to C programming classes at my university. I found it to be very helpful, starting simple and then moving forward at an acceptable rate. I was able to pick up C fairly quickly using this book as a starting point.

Most programmers come to C only after programming in other languages. If you fall into this category, this book is definitely not for you. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Deitel and Deitel, they publish books on a wide variety of programming languages and their treatment, right down to the examples and exercises, is identical in all. All their books are written to teach program design as well as the language in question. This is a waste of time for anyone who already knows how to program in at least one language. Buy this book only if you are absolutely new to programming in general and, for some reason, have chosen to learn C as your first language. Otherwise, you are much better off with Kernighan and Ritchie, Harbison and Steele, or Kenneth Reek's excellent book "Pointers on C."

I've only been using the C portion of this book (it also covers some C++ and Java), so my comments only refer to that portion. I got this book for an extension class at UCLA, and for the most part it explains things fairly well. As other reviewers have mentioned, it provides lots of longer examples. It seems to be geared towards beginners, so it tries hard to be easy to understand.

It does have some issues, however. The examples are so simple that they sometimes don't explain more complex issues. The file and string I/O information is seriously lacking. For example, there's no discussion of the problems with using gets for string input or fscanf for file input.

In my opinion, this book works for learning the basics, but it's not all that helpful as a reference once you want to start writing real programs and need to get into the nitty-gritty.

I am a student at a university, studying computer science. My professor recommended a book that the students should get to learn the c language. I got the book he requested and just wasn't getting it. After a friend had told me about "C, How To Program" by Deitel and Deitel, I bought and began reading the book. I felt more confident and did better in school. The book has exercises and a cd that enhance your knowledge of C even more. It goes beyond what my professor is teaching and each chapter converges with the sequence of his teaching. The book also combines C++ and Java of which I will need throughout my college experience. What a deal and this book has saved me so much time. I am very thankful and hope they continue to publish more books. I am now a faithful fan.

I bought this book for a C course I am taking, and not being new to programming, I assumed that it would be a piece of cake with the much-raved-about book (this one). However, I was surprised, when going through the lessons, when they introduced commands in the sample programs without even mentioning them in the text. I had to start up my compiler and experiment with the commands to understand those.... Overall, this book is ok, but not my first reccomendation.

I've bought many different C programming books, but this is the most complete book I've found.

Each chapter contains many tips for better programming techniques, avoiding common errors, improving programming speed and helping ensure your programs are portable. Many complete examples demonstate each subject, rather than small snipets of code commonly found in other programming books. At the end of each chapter there are lots of questions to get you to try out what you have just learned. Only half of these give answers, encouraging you to work it out for yourself. This helps improve self-study techniques and keeps the reader interested.

The most important aspect of this book, though, is how it explains 'Top-down, step-wise' program design. This is one of the most important aspects of structured programming, however, many other books don't even mention this.

It is obvious this book was written by programming teachers, not just programmers, because so much emphisis is placed on learning proper programming techniques.

The book should be about C programming language. C++ and Java
need not be in the book.