Practical C Programming [Paperback]

Steve Oualline (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 156592035X | ISBN-13: 978-1565920354 | Publication Date: November 8, 1993 | Edition: Second Edition

There are lots of introductory C books, but this is the first one that has the no-nonsense, practical approach that has made Nutshell Handbooks® famous. C programming is more than just getting the syntax right. Style and debugging also play a tremendous part in creating programs that run well and are easy to maintain.

Practical C Programming teaches you how to create programs that are easy to read, debug, and maintain. Practical rules are stressed. For example, there are fifteen precedence rules in C (&& comes before || comes before ?:). The practical programmer reduces these to two:

• multiplication and division come before addition and subtraction

Electronic Archaeology, the art of going through someone else's code, is also described.

Topics covered: - Good programming style - C syntax: what to use and what not to use - The programming environment, including make - The total programming process - Floating point limitations - Tricks and surprises

In this second edition, program examples conform to ANSI C. Covers Turbo C (DOS) as well as the UNIX C compiler.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

There are lots of introductory C books, but this is the first one that has the no-nonsense, practical approach that has made Nutshell Handbooks(R) famous. C programming is more than just getting the syntax right. Style and debugging also play a tremendous part in creating programs that run well and are easy to maintain. Practical C Programming teaches you how to create programs that are easy to read, debug, and maintain. Practical rules are stressed. For example, there are fifteen precedence rules in C (&& comes before || comes before ?:). The practical programmer reduces these to two: multiplication and division come before addition and subtraction put parentheses around everything else. Electronic Archaeology, the art of going through someone else's code, is also described. Topics covered: - Good programming style - C syntax: what to use and what not to use - The programming environment, including make - The total programming process - Floating point limitations - Tricks and surprises In this second edition, program examples conform to ANSI C. Covers Turbo C (DOS) as well as the UNIX C compiler.

About the Author

Steve Oualline lives in Southern California, where he works as a software engineer for a major phone company. In his free time he is a real engineer on the Poway Midland Railroad. Steve has written almost a dozen books on programming and Linux software. His web site is http://www.oualline.com .

Product Details

• Paperback: 396 pages
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media; Second Edition edition (November 8, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 156592035X
• ISBN-13: 978-1565920354
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (55 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,469,673 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The BEST C book this C programmer has ever read!, January 26, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Practical C Programming, 3rd Edition (Paperback)

I own literally shelves full of C and C++ books, and I've been programming in C professionally for almost ten years. This is THE book to have on C. I insist that every junior programmer I work with has a copy! It addresses not only programming syntax but good software engineering practices, and it has the most realistic real-world types of problems I have ever seen. When he asks you to find the bug in a section of code, those are exactly the type of bugs I see in novice programmers' code again and again. C is not a language for people who need to be coddled, and this book doesn't hold your hand; it just gives you lots of great information on C and how to do good software engineering. If you are a serious C professional, you should own this book.

23 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars O'Reilly - A way of life..., July 31, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Practical C Programming, 3rd Edition (Paperback)

Reading other people's reviews for most of the O'Reilly series books, what most people are forgetting is that O'Reilly books are not for the faint hearted. These books are written by people who use these languages for a living. They teach people in the more advanced capabilities of the language and the proper ways to use it. In fact, several of the books are written by people who were developing the languages. Practical C Programming and all other books in the Nutshell series are for technicly enclined people, not for beginners to the area. These books have been ranked as the best of the best for a reason, their real. Any book that tells you your going to learn a language in 21 days is not going to teach you any details and turn you into a code copier, not a code programmer. But then again, that's MHO.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not as helpful as other ORA books, September 10, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Practical C Programming, 3rd Edition (Paperback)

I bought this books because of the usefulness of other ORA I've bought. This one just wasn't as good. When the book contained the information I was looking for, it was presented well and very helpful (assuming I could find it). But I found the index to be incomplete making it difficult to find many topics, and many other common features which I would have found useful were left out all together. This is more or less adequate, especially for a beginning programmer, but I'm sure there's a better book out there.