roy@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith) (11/12/86)
I'm planning on giving a somewhat informal course in C programming
and don't know what text to use. The only C book I actually own is K&R's
"The C Programming Language", aka The White Book. While it's probably
required reading, I don't know if it's really what I want. Can anybody
make any suggestions?
The intended audience will be Ph.D. scientists (biological, not
computer), and probably some graduate students (again, biologists). Some
of the people have lots of Fortan experience (I've got one guy struggling
to write fork/exec/rsh code in F77 to run his application in parallel on
several networked machines) others a smattering of Basic, Pascal, and
who-knows-what. Everybody is already familiar with Unix so I don't need a
book that starts out "This is a computer, this is a terminal, this is a
text editor". These are also not comp-sci majors, so a bit of hand-holding
when we get to fun stuff like pointers and structures might be in order.
--
Roy Smith, {allegra,cmcl2,philabs}!phri!roy
System Administrator, Public Health Research Institute
455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016
"you can't spell deoxyribonucleic without unix!"larry@kitty.UUCP (Larry Lippman) (11/13/86)
In article <2495@phri.UUCP>, roy@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith) writes: > I'm planning on giving a somewhat informal course in C programming > and don't know what text to use. The only C book I actually own is K&R's > "The C Programming Language", aka The White Book. While it's probably > required reading, I don't know if it's really what I want. Can anybody > make any suggestions? > The intended audience will be Ph.D. scientists (biological, not > computer), and probably some graduate students (again, biologists). ... I have had similar requirements in that I have had to "make it easy" for engineers and chemists with a Fortran (or Basic - ugh!) background to learn C and adapt to the UNIX environment. While Kernighan/Ritchie and Kernighan/Pike are the classic books to get started with, I have found two other books which seem more intuitive: "C Primer Plus" by Waite, Prata and Martin, ISBN 0-672-22090-3, Sams "Advanced UNIX Programming" by Rochkind, ISBN 0-13-011800-1, Prentice-Hall "C Primer Plus" does a good job of dealing with C, independent of the operating system. For example, it makes it easy to understand such topics as structures and unions - which is "culture shock" for a Fortran programmer (at least it was for ME a few years back... :-) ). "Advanced UNIX Programming" fills in the pieces required for real-world UNIX applications - like signals, files, I/O, system calls, etc. I still recommend the Kernighan books as further reference for any serious user of C in the UNIX environment. ==> Larry Lippman @ Recognition Research Corp., Clarence, New York ==> UUCP: {allegra|decvax|rocksanne|rocksvax|watmath}!sunybcs!kitty!larry ==> VOICE: 716/688-1231 {hplabs|ihnp4|seismo|utzoo}!/ ==> FAX: 716/741-9635 {G1,G2,G3} "Have you hugged your cat today?"
robert@megaron.UUCP (11/14/86)
> > I'm planning on giving a somewhat informal course in C programming > and don't know what text to use. The only C book I actually own is K&R's... A new and very readable and complete text I've found is Programming in C by L. Miller and A. Quilici 1986 John Wiley and Sons
lmiller@venera.isi.edu (Larry Miller) (11/17/86)
In article <1302@megaron.UUCP> robert@megaron.UUCP writes: >> >> I'm planning on giving a somewhat informal course in C programming >> and don't know what text to use. The only C book I actually own is K&R's... > > >A new and very readable and complete text I've found is > >Programming in C >by L. Miller and A. Quilici >1986 >John Wiley and Sons Thanks!!
ems@prls.UUCP (Gordon Vickers) (11/17/86)
Other good books for learning 'C' ;
Learning to Program in C
Plum, Thomas
Plum Hall Inc.
ISBN 0-911537-007
This is the text that I learned from while attending a course
at D.E.C. This is a good no-nonsence book.
C Primer Plus
Waite, Prata, Martin
Howard Sams & Co., Inc
ISBN 0-672-22090-3
Good text for the more informal class. A bit of humor (but not too
much) makes for easy reading. Notes differances between VAX and PC
implimentations.
Programming in C
Stephen G. Kochan
Hayden Book Company, Inc.
ISBN 0-8104-6261-3
I really don't know how good this book is, I never use it. Looks
like it is pretty straight forward and no-nonsenced. Contains lots
of examples, exercises.
Regardless of how you learn C, get a few months practice and then see how
much you don't know by picking up a copy of ;
The C Puzzle Book
Alan R. Feuer (Bell Labs)
Prentice-Hall Inc.
ISBN 0-13-109926-4
This is NOT what you may at first assume it to be. The 'puzzles' are
just exercises with explainations. Nothing tricky or obscure, just good
valid exercises that will challenge and reinforce your present
understanding of the language.
------------- fold, spindle, mutilate at will ------(it's your CRT) ----
Gordon P. Vickers, (408) 991-5370,
Signetics Corp., PO Box 409, M/S 69, Sunnyvale, Ca 94086
{allegra,decvax,ihnp4}!philabs!prls!ems
or
{ucbvax,decwrl,ihnp4,allegra}!amdcad!amdimage!prls!ems
Kick the habit: ask the American Lung Association about their
"Freedom From Smoking" class. It worked for me, the wife, and 75%
of the class. What a differance! Its GREAT!
[ In this correspondance, I am representing myself and no others.
I am not part of the PRLS group, but they are nice enough to allow me
to TIP(1) to an account on their machine so I can send/receive email.] don@umd5 (Chris Sylvain) (11/17/86)
In article <1426@kitty.UUCP> larry@kitty.UUCP (Larry Lippman) writes: >In article <2495@phri.UUCP>, roy@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith) writes: >> I'm planning on giving a somewhat informal course in C programming >> and don't know what text to use. The only C book I actually own is K&R's >> "The C Programming Language"... > > ... While Kernighan/Ritchie and >Kernighan/Pike are the classic books to get started with, I have found two >other books which seem more intuitive: > >"C Primer Plus" by Waite, Prata and Martin, ISBN 0-672-22090-3, Sams > >"Advanced UNIX Programming" by Rochkind, ISBN 0-13-011800-1, Prentice-Hall > Alas, the Rochkind book emphasizes SYSV... (of course this may or may not be a problem for you, depending on your machine) I've found a book that seems the best choice for me: "C: A Reference Manual", by Harbison and Steele, ISBN 0-13-110008-4, Prentice-Hall For UNIX(tm), I'd recommend Kernighan and Pike. -- --==---==---==-- .. O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay! .. ARPA: don@umd5.UMD.EDU BITNET: don%umd5@umd2 UUCP: ..!seismo!umd5.umd.edu!don
ron@brl-sem.ARPA (Ron Natalie <ron>) (11/18/86)
In article <1360@umd5>, don@umd5 (Chris Sylvain) writes: > "C: A Reference Manual", by Harbison and Steele, ISBN 0-13-110008-4, > Prentice-Hall > Harbison and Steele is a great book, especially because it is one of the few that even begins to mention differences between compilers, but it is a little rough to learn out of. I'd suggest keeping Kernighan and Ritchie, Kernighan and Pike, and Harbison and Steele by your desk at all times. Now some nominations for the worst books of all times: The C Handbook. I'm not sure who wrote this. It looks like a TAB handbook, but I was so disgusted by it that I threw it back on the shelf without noting the authors or publishers. Any of Gauthier's UNIX books. -Ron
eeproks@gitpyr.gatech.EDU (K. J. Seefried iii) (11/18/86)
--
One more good C book:
Advanced C: Food for the Educated Palate
Narain Gehani
ISBN 0-88175-078-6
Computer Science Press
Very Unix oriented. The book is direct, to the point and assumes that you know
another programming language (pascal, modula, etc.). He goes over the language,
the C preprocessor and other Unix tools, the Unix C library and briefly goes
over C++ constructors, destructors and operator/function overloading. The
author worked at Bell Labs and they own the books copyright (1985). An
excellent book for the experienced programmer.
K. J. Seefried iii
P.O. Box 30104, Georgia Insitute of Technology, Atlanta Georgia, 30332
...!{akgua,allegra,amd,hplabs,ihnp4,seismo,ut-ngp}!gatech!gitpyr!eeproks