Customer Reviews

Sams Teach Yourself C for Linux Programming in 21 Days

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Aside from teaching myself BASIC on my Commodore 64 way-back-when...this is the first programming language I have learned and I owe it all to this book. It is fantastic. Step-by-step, they take you from defining/describing what C is, to writing real-world programs.

You would do well to ignore the ignorant reviewers who complain about the title "21 days" (or 24 hours). These people are only looking for excuses. All the 'Teach yourself in 21 Days' books should be seen as 21 LESSONS (and the 24 hours as 24 LESSONS). Could I do it in 21 days? Yes, following the book's plan I could. Easily. But, I have a full time job, family, etc. and these factors can NOT be held accountable by the authors. 21 Excellent Lessons.

Days, Hours, months...whatever YOUR pace is, this book does an EXCELLENT job of teaching you what you need to know to write real-world, practical C Programs. I first learned Unix with using of the 'Teach yourself' books and have been a devoted reader ever since.

Some days I have time to go through 2 lessons while other times a single lesson may take me a day or 2 due to time constraints. Bottom line: I LEARNED C FROM THIS BOOK AND YOU CAN TOO.

I am NOT a computer science major. I am a self-taught Linux hacker who never wrote a line of code (except for a little BASIC 15 years ago) and I am now writing C code and tinkering with Open Source programs. (I'm running Slackware and Debian, if you were wondering).

Other tutorials are fine but many assume you are using Windows 95/98. "C is C is C", but this book is written in 'Linuxland' for Linux users; GCC is carefully explained and used here. I use and love the Nedit editor which was one of several recommended in the book.

New to C? Or want a fresh start from the beginning while in a Linux environment? GET THIS BOOK and digest all 21 LESSONS at your own pace!

I have been learning C++ for a while on a linux platform, and started to look at some C stuff in the kernel and other programs to broaden my knowledge. I saw that that although C++ is derived from C it doesn't necessarily do stuff the same way, so I picked up this book. It was right on the mark! and explained some peculiar C stuff right away and in a good easy to read style. It consolidated my knowledge well an added to my understanding, particularly with pointers to pointers by including well thought out text and pictures well done. It also provides a good tutorial into basic GCC usage and the peculirities of programming for Linux, I recomend it.

Sam's TEACH YOURSELF C FOR LINUX IN 21 DAYS is the ideal book for the total beginner wanting to program in Linux. C is the dominant language on Linux, as the kernel and most GNU and GNOME apps are written in it, and this book teaches C in a clear manner without expecting the reader to already know programming concepts.

The book opens with a few chapters of basic C program structure and the mathematical functions needed to perform tasks. After that, it immediately introduces three key programming concepts: strings and streams (inputing from and outputing to an external source). While most programming books don't discuss these concepts until late in the book, keeping the reader caged in mere theory without being able to make a useful program, TEACH YOURSELF C FOR LINUX introduces them early so that the learner can immediately start producing useful programs to solve common tasks.

While Sam's guide to C++ programming on Linux is actually just its generic C++ guide with a few token Linux references, happily Sam's TEACH YOURSELF C FOR LINUX is really solid on Linux and its authors are have actual experience in open-source design.

My only complaints are the limited coverage of structs, which can really make C programming easier and more powerful if used correctly, and of the GNU C Library. The glibc info documentation is so concise and difficult to follow that beginners need a better guide, and it's a shame that this book didn't provide it. The book is also three years old, so its chapter on GUI programing with GTK is somewhat out of date now that GTK2 has been released, although porting a GTK+ app to GTK2 is not a lot of work.

Linux is a platform where luckily all the tools one needs to get started programming are shipped free, and contribution to free (or "open-source") is encouraged. If you want to capitalize on the advantages of the platform, Sam's TEACH YOURSELF C PROGRAMMING FOR LINUX is the way to go.

This book is beyond as good as i said in my last review, well this is an update. After finishing this book, i have an entirely new outlook on why this book is so good! I always find myself looking back for a reminder; if there's something i need a refresh or rescale on, it's got it. it teaches compiling all the way to deployment. This book is desirably the best in my GNU/Linux stash. There are so many extras in this book, you would b surprised why they priced it so low!

COVERED- Pointers (in depth), functions, all forms of data structures, GTK/GTK+, and more-

If you the reader are taking any introductory courses in programming, for goodness and gpa get this book! Especially if you have a[bad]teacher as i once did ;)

Hope this was helpful

This is one of the best programming books I have ever worked with/used. I had a program which I had written in Perl to parse and search unformatted log files. It worked, but very slowly. I picked up this book and thought I would try and rewrite it in C during the holidays. Four days latter it was done. I felt like I had really accomplished something, rewritten my program (which is now over a 100 times faster), and learned some C.
The best thing was that I never ran into an example that didn't work and the examples were so straight forward I didn't have to write and try every one. ( I'm of the ilk that usually writes and tries all the examples). I wish they could all be this good.

I read this book about 8 months ago and I must say that it's the best introduction to C you can ever have. Yet it has a lack in some aspects, like not explaining the enum keyword, C is too big to cover it in just one book. I think this book makes the best in keeping things clear, explaining some theories (like linked list), keeping things kinda short and giving a general introduction to most aspects. I see two things very important missing, socket programming and enum keyword, the rest is very well written.

It also gives you a little introduction to X (graphics) programming with GTK+.

While reading this book I started coding a mail client for GNOME called Cronos II which is getting bigger and popular, and I must thank the knowleadge to this book.

Going into my first year as a computer science student, I had never programmed before in any language. After realizing how tough it was, I picked up this book that was luckily in a local book store and read the entire book cover to cover. I'm now in my final year preparing to do a Masters in computer science thanks largely in part to this book. Even though it's not a complete C reference, it definatly gets you going in the write direction. From making simple to advanced makefiles in a clear and understandable manner, to structured software development with debugging information and proper coding techniques. It is missing important information like database programming and socket programming, but the things that are missing could be picked up in a more indepth and advanced book on C programming like "Beginning Linux Programming" (big red book with the 2 guys on the cover laughing at eachother). I'd never part with my copy of Teach Yourself C in 21 Days because its a good reference for little things you may forget along the way.

This book was well planned, and easy to follow; I had a great time learning about C. In the end of the book, they teach you a bit about gtk and gtk+ (at least i was using this bcuz of the book) by building a simple wordpad/text editor. This book was just what i needed after reading the other 'regular C in 21' book from SAMS Publishing <- comes with a bonus week. By the way, that was a very good book as well. -Although you will find alot of the sample code most monotonous because they use the same examples in most areas. <How many times will they use the same shaky list_it program? (:I still have issues with some of that code:)>
These being the only true downfalls, a very well organized book that much can be learned from.
Hope this was helpful-

This text was my first real encounter with programming (besides, as some others have written, BASIC and LOGO on the Apple II many moons ago...)

I am a linux/unix hobbyists always trying to understand more, and this book was a great intro to programming in general. I also highly recomend "Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software" by Charles Petzold. I read this a few months before really digging into this C book. Code is a much more conceptual book, but has great simple analogies that make you really understand what makes computing possible, and how basic logic gates work, and their potential.

de Castro Lopo's book gave me a great real-life intro to programming and C in general. Variables, loops, and basic decision making are explained clearly and illustrated with great examples of actual C code, which you can write, compile, and run to test. (and then change around to really understand whats going on...) I have since been able to pick up books on Ruby, Python, and BASH scripting, and at least understand what is going on with variables and loops without even knowing the details of these languages. Admittedly, I am not at the point where I am fluently solving problems with any of these languages, but I now have the confidence to take it to that next step. If I had spent more time with the examples in this book, I probably would be writing more programs.

Thanks!

I came to this book after struggling to learn C++. I found this book to be well written and understandable given that it is a programming book. The book breaks down the programs in a step by step manner which made it each smaller piece easier to understand. Although, the author avoids explaining some things early on, it is so that the reader isn't overwhelmed.

I was able to learn C from this book when I was a 10th grader in high school with only a background in BASIC. Although, there may be better books out there, this book is good to fair.

I am now a software engineer who owes some of his early education to this book.