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nikulinpi n00b
Joined: 12 Jan 2007 Posts: 37
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Posted: Sat Nov 17, 2018 4:06 pm Post subject: Learning C from scratch after 14 years not using it |
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Hi,
What is the best way to learn C from scratch? I used to code C in high school, but haven't touched for 14 years since.
Any suggestions to find anything qualifying as "from scratch" course? |
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Morality124 Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 20 Feb 2018 Posts: 102
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Posted: Sat Nov 17, 2018 6:03 pm Post subject: |
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EDX has a lot of free courses that are based on real university courses - not so good though if you want a "credible" citation on a resume though. |
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CaptainBlood Advocate
Joined: 24 Jan 2010 Posts: 3623
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John R. Graham Administrator
Joined: 08 Mar 2005 Posts: 10589 Location: Somewhere over Atlanta, Georgia
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Posted: Sat Nov 17, 2018 6:52 pm Post subject: |
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K&R is a good book, but it's somewhat concise: best for at least moderately experienced programmers. I also learned C over 30 years ago from K&R, but at the time I was writing production code in FORTRAN, PL/I, and (I swear) IBM 370 Assembly Language (and also avoiding COBOL like the plague). For a more thorough text for beginners, I'd recommend C Primer Plus by Prata. But there's something else you need to do: find something real and substantial to do with it. Working the textbook examples is a good start, but that doesn't really cause it to sink in the same way that actually using a language in practice does.
- John _________________ I can confirm that I have received between 0 and 499 National Security Letters. |
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CaptainBlood Advocate
Joined: 24 Jan 2010 Posts: 3623
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Posted: Sat Nov 17, 2018 7:28 pm Post subject: |
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John, you're right saying practice remains the key, but I guess nikulinpi has a good purpose for learning C.
As I was coming from BASIC, it helped be to think closer to hardware.
Long side note: Funny you're mentionning your attitude towards COBOL as I had the same, for which I had a few regrets with all the supposed easy money to be made out of it in the late 90's.
Thks 4 ur attention, interest & support. |
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Irre Guru
Joined: 09 Nov 2013 Posts: 434 Location: Stockholm
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Posted: Sun Nov 18, 2018 7:22 pm Post subject: |
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My first programming language was ALGOL in school almost 50 years ago. It was a traumatic experience, but I realise now that it was a good language...
Then FORTRAN IV for some years (I liked it).
Then PL/1 (a very good language, that should have replaced both FORTRAN and COBOL), but I think IBM did some mistakes there in pricing. Customers had to buy a license just to run a compiled program, stupid. IBM also had a language for scripts REXX that looked like PL/1. (emerge dev-lang/regina-rexx ).
My last languages were C and C++. They gave me grey hair! I wrote some programs to run under unix, but I used Windows Visual C++ to write and test them. I think Visual C++ is free to use for students. |
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arnvidr l33t
Joined: 19 Aug 2004 Posts: 629 Location: Oslo, Norway
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sao98021 Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 03 Apr 2012 Posts: 145 Location: Michigan
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Posted: Fri Nov 23, 2018 6:50 am Post subject: |
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arnvidr wrote: | http://books.goalkicker.com/CBook/CNotesForProfessionals.pdf |
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pjp Administrator
Joined: 16 Apr 2002 Posts: 20067
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Posted: Sat Nov 24, 2018 3:37 am Post subject: |
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John R. Graham wrote: | For a more thorough text for beginners, I'd recommend C Primer Plus by Prata. But there's something else you need to do: find something real and substantial to do with it. Working the textbook examples is a good start, but that doesn't really cause it to sink in the same way that actually using a language in practice does. | After myself, the next biggest hurdle I've encountered are example after example which are then followed by some statement to the effect of "but don't do that in production" (because it was only for "learning" purposes, and is very flawed). Well, OK. But that doesn't truly help me learn. I'll look into the reference. Thanks. _________________ Quis separabit? Quo animo? |
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