Practical C Programming

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1. raddanOct 2022
   I am surprised to see nobody mention Practical C Programming (https://www.amazon.com/Practical-Programming-Does-Nutshell-H...) by Steve Oualline. Before I studied computer science in school, I read this book and successfully taught myself C. Readers here may consider it to be a bit remedial, but if you’re struggling to understand the other recommended books, start here. I attempted to read K&R half a dozen times back then, unsuccessfully. Looking back at it now, I can see why: K&R’s examples are hard for true beginners to wrap their minds around. I now teach C as a part of an upper level undergraduate course; the key to understanding most of C’s counterintuitive behavior is to have a clear understanding of its relationship with memory. In fact, I quite like C. It is simple and elegant in many ways. It is also just super unsafe.
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2. raddanJun 2022
   I’ve read K&R and it failed to resonate with me. The problems have always seemed like the type you’d run into if you were the kind of person writing an operating system… in the 70’s… on a minicomputer.

   I learned C from “Practical C Programming” by Steve Oualline. I remember reading it on bus rides home from work and just itching to try out the code myself. I loved that the author motivated many of the exercises with the weird corners of C that eventually bite you if you only have a naive understanding of the language. There’s even a fun one on the cover itself.

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3. the_afJun 2020
   There's wisdom out there that an incorrect but clear and well-commented program is better than a correct but unclear one. This is quoted at least in O'Reilly's "Practical C Programing" [1], which is a pretty good book. A lot of programmers believe this, too. I think the concept has merit (without taking it to extremes, of course).

   [1] https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/practical-c-programming...

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4. auvrwFeb 2019
   these changed almost everything i think about:

   misc. Forrest Mims notebooks, the Python Tutorial, Practical C Programming

   first chapter of Sound and the Fury, snippets of Naked Lunch, wide swaths of Ulysses

   The Universe in a Nutshell, French's Special Relativity

   The Gamma Function, a graph theory text whose name i don't remember, baby Rudin

   Brain Structure and Its Origins, The Form Within

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5. elmarschramlJan 2017
   Back in the day, I really enjoyed "Practical C Programming". https://www.amazon.de/Practical-C-Programming-Nutshell-Handb...

   Short, easy to understand, but not over-simplified, and a practical, pragmatic approach to everything.

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6. knieveltechJan 2012
   Practical C Programming by Steve Oualline (O'reilly Press) is maybe my favorite beginning coding books of all time, and definitely the best introduction to C I've encountered to date.
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