The Waite Group's New C Primer Plus

It is way too good to be true! I love it too much! If I read this book in my college, I would have loved the computer science and been an excellent programmer instead of a good optical engineer!

Wow! What an awesome book! First, let me tell you that I had tried many a time to learn C before, but until I read this book it wasn't "sinking in" (important things like pointers, the fact that functions copied their parameters and that's why scanf() uses the address, etc). Of course, the bits and pieces that I did pick up probably helped quite a bit (in fact, I'm sure they did).This book basically teaches you the majority of C's syntax, only the most important library functions, and finally, a little bit about coding style (sprinkled throughout the text). It also does a VERY GOOD job of explaining binary, hex and octal numbers and binary operations like and, or, and xor (among others). Oh, and when I say syntax, I mean syntax; I'm not referring to library functions, which are so numerous that one should use either an online or hard-copy manual for them (although, as I say, the most important ones are, of course, covered). Make sure to look somewhere else for information on realloc(), and strdup() comes in handy if you're using the GCC compiler.The only thing I might say is a tad lacking in this text is something that most introductory texts ("primers") don't talk all that much about. The very last chapter tries to explain linked lists, queues, and binary search trees. They do a good job of explaining them and of how ADTs work, etc., but I am still thinking I can get a better explanation. They did do a pretty good job for squeezing it into one chapter, though.But don't let that slight problem steer you away from this book! If you want to learn C, START WITH THIS BOOK!!I just ordered another book called "Mastering Algorithms in C" (by Kyle Loudon) that I'm hoping will be a good "next step". It covers not only linked lists, queues, and binary search trees, but several other algorithms that are commonly used and seem to be handy. Before teaching you these algorithms, however, pointers, recursion and "algorithm basics" are covered. From reading the user reviews I've decided that's probably the way to go, but don't take my word for it; all I'm saying is that after this book, it's probably a good idea to find a book on algorithms as your "next step".Happy reading! :-)

I have an eight year-old copy, and when getting back into C programming after a long layoff (don't ever take a promotion to project leader if you can't keep coding), I pulled this one off my shelf (skipping K & R's book, Herb Schildt's book, and three others in my library).It got me right back into the mindset quickly (I started with the pointers chapter, where all the action is), and helped me get the rust knocked off quick. The examples are well-explained, small and easy to test, and the progression of the book is logical and sane. Buy it and you can wait a year before needing another book on C.

Even if you have another beginning text, the excellent review exercises alone are worth the price of the book. If you are hoping to learn C from scratch, this is the one. If you are hoping to learn C++, start here first and your future C++ studies will be greatly accelerated

This book covers all the major aspects of C programming. It takes this complex language and breaks it down in a clear and concise format. The examples given by the authors are easy to follow and humorous.