Customer Reviews

C Programming for the Absolute Beginner

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

 

 

The book is easy to follow, and can help a non-programmer pick up the basics. The problem is in the code examples. The code examples in this book all compile, and the binaries run, but if you enable warnings on your ANSI-compliant compiler before compiling any of this code, you will see a whole host of warnings and error messages. Don't think that you will learn C from this book and then go get a job somewhere as a C programmer. Your code will be as non-ANSI compliant as it could possibly be while still working. This makes it even more difficult if you progress to a more advanced C text after this, as you will likely have to go back and relearn quite a bit. I give it 5 stars for ease of use, but it loses 3 stars for not "teaching good programming practices" as it claims to on the cover.

Deftly written by software engineer and applications developer Michael Vine, C Programming For The Absolute Beginner truly lives up to its title. No previous familiarity with the art of computer programming is required to understand and learn from the lessons provided, all of which revolve around simple game creation in a learn-through-doing process. Basic C Programming tasks such as initializing variables, creating two-dimensional arrays, manipulating strings, and using compound if structures, are among the many core building block abilities taught by this superbly written and presented introductory guide. An accompanying CD contains a gcc C compiler and the Cygwin free UNIX shell makes Michael Vine's C Programming For The Absolute Beginner and absolute "must" for anyone wanting to learn C Programming from scratch.

This is heavily focused on C programming in the Windows environment. The information is decent, but if you want to use Unix or Linux, etc., you will need something else to supplement.

If you have never programmed before, then this gentle introduction to C might be suitable for you. It explains the syntax. And how to code in a procedural, top-down manner. It also points out the advantages of designing for code reusability. Something that is probably not high on the awareness of a new programmer.

You can learn the importance of flow charting. Why you should do this before coding. Time well spent, that can really help your program, instead of just winging it and pounding away at the keyboard.

The book does have a drawback. The figures which are screen captures of terminal windows are blurry. A little offputting.

I think C Programming for the absolute beginner is fairly well written and contains some good examples. The challenges aren't all games, and some of them will probably be uninteresting to the reader. It is the best book I've read so far for learning C, and would certainly recommend it to others who want to learn it as well.