Hello!

What is the best way to learn C? Which are the best tutorials and which
are the best books? Can someone please give me a little guidance?

--
Torbjörn Svensson Diaz

=?UTF-8?Q?Torbj=c3=b6rn_Svensson_Diaz?= <torbjorn.svensson.diaz@gmail.com> writes:
>What is the best way to learn C? Which are the best tutorials and which
>are the best books? Can someone please give me a little guidance?

Check out

"Modern C" by Jens Gustedt

.

On Saturday, 18 December 2021 at 13:35:01 UTC+2, Torbjörn Svensson Diaz wrote:
> Hello!
>
> What is the best way to learn C? Which are the best tutorials and which
> are the best books? Can someone please give me a little guidance?

If you want to learn to program then C might be is not best choice of
language for starting. If you already have learned to program in some
other language then C just teaches you to be bit more responsible and
pay bit more attention to efficiency of your results. Otherwise it is
extremely simple.

Am 18.12.2021 um 12:34 schrieb Torbjörn Svensson Diaz:
> Hello!
> What is the best way to learn C? Which are the best tutorials and which
> are the best books? Can someone please give me a little guidance?

Absolutely sufficient for this bad language:
http://cslabcms.nju.edu.cn/problem_solving/images/c/cc/The_C_Programming_Language_%282nd_Edition_Ritchie_Kernighan%29.pdf

On 2021-12-18 13:21, Stefan Ram wrote:
> =?UTF-8?Q?Torbj=c3=b6rn_Svensson_Diaz?= <torbjorn.svensson.diaz@gmail.com> writes:
>> What is the best way to learn C? Which are the best tutorials and which
>> are the best books? Can someone please give me a little guidance?
>
> Check out
>
> "Modern C" by Jens Gustedt

Ok. Thanks.

--
Torbjörn Svensson Diaz

On 2021-12-18 13:25, Öö Tiib wrote:
> On Saturday, 18 December 2021 at 13:35:01 UTC+2, Torbjörn Svensson Diaz wrote:
>> Hello!
>>
>> What is the best way to learn C? Which are the best tutorials and which
>> are the best books? Can someone please give me a little guidance?
>
> If you want to learn to program then C might be is not best choice of
> language for starting. If you already have learned to program in some
> other language then C just teaches you to be bit more responsible and
> pay bit more attention to efficiency of your results. Otherwise it is
> extremely simple.

I already know some Python.

--
Torbjörn Svensson Diaz

On 2021-12-18 13:26, Bonita Montero wrote:
> Am 18.12.2021 um 12:34 schrieb Torbjörn Svensson Diaz:
>> Hello!
>> What is the best way to learn C? Which are the best tutorials and
>> which are the best books? Can someone please give me a little guidance?
>
> Absolutely sufficient for this bad language:
> http://cslabcms.nju.edu.cn/problem_solving/images/c/cc/The_C_Programming_Language_%282nd_Edition_Ritchie_Kernighan%29.pdf
>

Thanks. But what is so bad about C in your opinion?

--
Torbjörn Svensson Diaz

Am 18.12.2021 um 13:49 schrieb Torbjörn Svensson Diaz:

>> Absolutely sufficient for this bad language:
>> http://cslabcms.nju.edu.cn/problem_solving/images/c/cc/The_C_Programming_Language_%282nd_Edition_Ritchie_Kernighan%29.pdf

> Thanks. But what is so bad about C in your opinion?

Becaues C has only the simplest language facilities and
you have to do anything on your own. Other languages make
programming much easier.

On Saturday, 18 December 2021 at 14:49:33 UTC+2, Torbjörn Svensson Diaz wrote:
> On 2021-12-18 13:25, Öö Tiib wrote:
> > On Saturday, 18 December 2021 at 13:35:01 UTC+2, Torbjörn Svensson Diaz wrote:
> >> Hello!
> >>
> >> What is the best way to learn C? Which are the best tutorials and which
> >> are the best books? Can someone please give me a little guidance?
> >
> > If you want to learn to program then C might be is not best choice of
> > language for starting. If you already have learned to program in some
> > other language then C just teaches you to be bit more responsible and
> > pay bit more attention to efficiency of your results. Otherwise it is
> > extremely simple.
>
> I already know some Python.

Good choice. It is tricky to find problems for solving what Python is not
suitable and C is among best candidates. I mean in industry there are
plenty but not so lot of for hobbyist beginner. Especially now when there
appears to be major shortage of semiconductor products.

=?UTF-8?Q?Torbj=c3=b6rn_Svensson_Diaz?= <torbjorn.svensson.diaz@gmail.com> writes:
>I already know some Python.

Recently someone in a newsgrouped asked how to do a string
switch statement in C. I was about to answer, "Just use a
high-level language like Python!". But then I remembered that
Python has no switch statement at all! LOL!

(Only the recent Python 3.10 now has a similar "match" statement.)

On Sat, 18 Dec 2021 12:34:49 +0100, Torbjörn Svensson Diaz wrote:

> Hello!
>
> What is the best way to learn C?

Write lots of code. Tackle small projects at first, then move on
to larger projects that progressively challenge your skills and
knowledge.
Make mistakes, find out /why/ they were mistakes, and then correct them.
Refine your skills.

> Which are the best tutorials and which are the best books?

That's mostly a matter of personal opinion, usually governed by the
student's skills and preferences.

> Can someone please give me a little guidance?

Others here will have better advice.
--
Lew Pitcher
"In Skills, We Trust"

On 12/18/2021 1:49 PM, Torbjörn Svensson Diaz wrote:
> On 2021-12-18 13:26, Bonita Montero wrote:
>> Am 18.12.2021 um 12:34 schrieb Torbjörn Svensson Diaz:
>>> Hello!
>>> What is the best way to learn C? Which are the best tutorials and
>>> which are the best books? Can someone please give me a little guidance?
>>
>> Absolutely sufficient for this bad language:
>> http://cslabcms.nju.edu.cn/problem_solving/images/c/cc/The_C_Programming_Language_%282nd_Edition_Ritchie_Kernighan%29.pdf
>>
>
> Thanks. But what is so bad about C in your opinion?
>

Careful with this question to this person ;)
She is systematically whining about how bad C is compared to C++

(Incidentally, that link may be legal in China but may be not in other
countries)

Am 18.12.2021 um 17:54 schrieb Manfred:
> On 12/18/2021 1:49 PM, Torbjörn Svensson Diaz wrote:
>> On 2021-12-18 13:26, Bonita Montero wrote:
>>> Am 18.12.2021 um 12:34 schrieb Torbjörn Svensson Diaz:
>>>> Hello!
>>>> What is the best way to learn C? Which are the best tutorials and
>>>> which are the best books? Can someone please give me a little guidance?
>>>
>>> Absolutely sufficient for this bad language:
>>> http://cslabcms.nju.edu.cn/problem_solving/images/c/cc/The_C_Programming_Language_%282nd_Edition_Ritchie_Kernighan%29.pdf
>>>
>>
>> Thanks. But what is so bad about C in your opinion?
>>
>
> Careful with this question to this person ;)
> She is systematically whining about how bad C is compared to C++

C is the worst language compared to any other language
which is suitable for systems-progtamming, not only C++.

On 18/12/2021 17:32, Bonita Montero wrote:
> Am 18.12.2021 um 17:54 schrieb Manfred:
>> On 12/18/2021 1:49 PM, Torbjörn Svensson Diaz wrote:
>>> On 2021-12-18 13:26, Bonita Montero wrote:
>>>> Am 18.12.2021 um 12:34 schrieb Torbjörn Svensson Diaz:
>>>>> Hello!
>>>>> What is the best way to learn C? Which are the best tutorials and
>>>>> which are the best books? Can someone please give me a little
>>>>> guidance?
>>>>
>>>> Absolutely sufficient for this bad language:
>>>> http://cslabcms.nju.edu.cn/problem_solving/images/c/cc/The_C_Programming_Language_%282nd_Edition_Ritchie_Kernighan%29.pdf
>>>>
>>>
>>> Thanks. But what is so bad about C in your opinion?
>>>
>>
>> Careful with this question to this person ;)
>> She is systematically whining about how bad C is compared to C++
>
> C is the worst language compared to any other language
> which is suitable for systems-progtamming, not only C++.

I normally use my own systems language which I rate as superior to C in
many ways, although it is not significantly higher level.

Yet I would rate C far above C++ for such purposes. At least C++ as it
is normally used, which is usually not by just writing C-style code; it
has to involve considerably more clutter.

A lot of language implementations are based around C. A lot of languages
also use C as a target or intermediate form; rarely C++.

Most libraries I come across use a basic, C-compatible API, usable from
many languages, even interpreted ones. A C++ API would be pretty much
unusable from any other language.

The smallest C implementation I've seen (of a reasonably full-featured
C99), is a 180KB, 1-million-line-per-second compiler. I don't know the
C++ equivalent, but I doubt it is that small or that fast.

So, while I agree that C could be a lot better, I think there is a need
for such a lower-level, small-footprint systems language. Such a
language isn't C++.

Am 18.12.2021 um 19:22 schrieb Bart:

> Yet I would rate C far above C++ for such purposes. At least C++ as it
> is normally used, which is usually not by just writing C-style code; it
> has to involve considerably more clutter.

C++ has the same efficiency if you use it properly but you write a
fraction of the code and if you use it properly, you have much more
readability. C should belongs to the museum.

Bonita Montero <Bonita.Montero@gmail.com> writes:
> Am 18.12.2021 um 12:34 schrieb Torbjörn Svensson Diaz:
>> Hello!
>> What is the best way to learn C? Which are the best tutorials and
>> which are the best books? Can someone please give me a little
>> guidance?
>
> Absolutely sufficient for this bad language:
> http://[DELETED]/The_C_Programming_Language_%282nd_Edition_Ritchie_Kernighan%29.pdf

That's a link to a pirated copy of a copyrighted book. Legitimate
copies are available from various book sellers, including in electronic
formats (Amazon Kindle, probably others).

Shame on you.

--
Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith) Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com
Working, but not speaking, for Philips
void Void(void) { Void(); } /* The recursive call of the void */

Am 19.12.2021 um 07:19 schrieb Keith Thompson:
> Bonita Montero <Bonita.Montero@gmail.com> writes:
>> Am 18.12.2021 um 12:34 schrieb Torbjörn Svensson Diaz:
>>> Hello!
>>> What is the best way to learn C? Which are the best tutorials and
>>> which are the best books? Can someone please give me a little
>>> guidance?
>>
>> Absolutely sufficient for this bad language:
>> http://[DELETED]/The_C_Programming_Language_%282nd_Edition_Ritchie_Kernighan%29.pdf
>
> That's a link to a pirated copy of a copyrighted book. Legitimate
> copies are available from various book sellers, including in electronic
> formats (Amazon Kindle, probably others).

With popular books there are often hundreds of them if
you search for "bookname doctype:pdf". Isn't this cool ?

Keith Thompson <Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com> wrote in
news:87czlt6rr3.fsf@nosuchdomain.example.com:

> Bonita Montero <Bonita.Montero@gmail.com> writes:
>> Am 18.12.2021 um 12:34 schrieb Torbjörn Svensson Diaz:
>>> Hello!
>>> What is the best way to learn C? Which are the best tutorials and
>>> which are the best books? Can someone please give me a little
>>> guidance?
>>
>> Absolutely sufficient for this bad language:
>> http://[DELETED]/The_C_Programming_Language_%282nd_Edition_Ritchie_Ker
>> nighan%29.pdf
>
> That's a link to a pirated copy of a copyrighted book. Legitimate
> copies are available from various book sellers, including in
> electronic formats (Amazon Kindle, probably others).
>
> Shame on you.
>

Agreed.

Best way to learn any language is to read its rules and then build what you
want. Start small and grow the details. I still have Ritchie's book
within reach should it ever be needed. Why throw away something that
rarely changes. That is a great feature of C. Another is that while you
can buy code written by others to make things you can just as easily make
them yourself.

On Saturday, 18 December 2021 at 11:35:01 UTC, Torbjörn Svensson Diaz wrote:
> Hello!
>
> What is the best way to learn C? Which are the best tutorials and which
> are the best books? Can someone please give me a little guidance?
>
It just depends what sort of background you have. I was an assembly language
programmer before I learned C. So in my case it was "What's the funny asterisk?"
"It's the indirection operator." "Oh", and I understoof pointers.

If you've never used a language that allows direct memory access before, that's
unlikely to be adequate. From experience, pointers cause a great deal of trouble
to many newbies. But they are the heart of C. Once you understand them, pretty
much everything else just works as anyone would expect - you've got loops,
if statements, and subroutine calls, like any other pricedural language.

On Saturday, 18 December 2021 at 18:22:44 UTC, Bart wrote:
>
> So, while I agree that C could be a lot better, I think there is a need
> for such a lower-level, small-footprint systems language. Such a
> language isn't C++.
>
You can implement a C compiler from scratch. You can't implement a C++
compiler unless you've got a huge budget, which means that you must be
in the business of compiler development itself.

However generally it's easier to retarget gcc. There might be cases where
this isn't possible.

On Saturday, December 18, 2021 at 5:35:01 AM UTC-6, Torbjörn Svensson Diaz wrote:
> Hello!
>
> What is the best way to learn C? Which are the best tutorials and which
> are the best books? Can someone please give me a little guidance?
>

Others have given good book suggestions. For the best /tutorial/, I'd recommend
Brian Kernighan's original tutorial paper. It's a little outdated and quirky. But it's
well written and *short*. It gives a reasonably complete overview that should
make a more modern text easier to follow.

https://www.lysator.liu.se/c/bwk-tutor.html

luser droog <luser.droog@gmail.com> writes:

> On Saturday, December 18, 2021 at 5:35:01 AM UTC-6, Torbjörn Svensson Diaz wrote:
>> What is the best way to learn C? Which are the best tutorials and
>> which are the best books? Can someone please give me a little
>> guidance?
>>
>
> Others have given good book suggestions. For the best /tutorial/, I'd
> recommend Brian Kernighan's original tutorial paper. It's a little
> outdated and quirky. But it's well written and *short*. It gives a
> reasonably complete overview that should make a more modern text
> easier to follow.
>
> https://www.lysator.liu.se/c/bwk-tutor.html

No, I can't agree. At time, maybe, but not now. Amongst the big
problems are: no function prototypes, implicit int, old-style function
definitions, the old =<op> syntax, unique structure tags (because they
are all interchangeable), no initialisation of structures nor of local
variables and '\0' as an end-of-file marker.

But then there's almost no use of library functions, no unsigned types,
no typedef, no long, no void, no const and all local declarations have
to be at the start of a function. Some of these would, perhaps, be
deliberately omitted from a first tutorial, but I would not students to
learn that C has only four types: char, int float and double.

I suppose it's still possible that this is the best tutorial but that
says more about the others than it does about the suitability of this
one (there are a lot of awful ones out there).

--
Ben.

On 19/12/2021 10:14, Bonita Montero wrote:
> Am 19.12.2021 um 07:19 schrieb Keith Thompson:
>> Bonita Montero <Bonita.Montero@gmail.com> writes:
>>> Am 18.12.2021 um 12:34 schrieb Torbjörn Svensson Diaz:
>>>> Hello!
>>>> What is the best way to learn C? Which are the best tutorials and
>>>> which are the best books? Can someone please give me a little
>>>> guidance?
>>>
>>> Absolutely sufficient for this bad language:
>>> http://[DELETED]/The_C_Programming_Language_%282nd_Edition_Ritchie_Kernighan%29.pdf
>>>
>>
>> That's a link to a pirated copy of a copyrighted book.  Legitimate
>> copies are available from various book sellers, including in electronic
>> formats (Amazon Kindle, probably others).
>
> With popular books there are often hundreds of them if
> you search for "bookname doctype:pdf". Isn't this cool ?

No - it is /not/ "cool". It is encouraging copyright violation, which
is illegal in most countries, a crime in some, and immoral in all.
There might be some justification (though this is not the place to argue
it) if the book were unavailable in legal ways and the publisher had
been refusing to make it available - but that is not the case here.

There are enough free sources of information about C that are easily
available.

On 12/19/2021 4:21 PM, Ben Bacarisse wrote:
> luser droog <luser.droog@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> On Saturday, December 18, 2021 at 5:35:01 AM UTC-6, Torbjörn Svensson Diaz wrote:
>>> What is the best way to learn C? Which are the best tutorials and
>>> which are the best books? Can someone please give me a little
>>> guidance?
>>>
>>
>> Others have given good book suggestions. For the best /tutorial/, I'd
>> recommend Brian Kernighan's original tutorial paper. It's a little
>> outdated and quirky. But it's well written and *short*. It gives a
>> reasonably complete overview that should make a more modern text
>> easier to follow.
>>
>> https://www.lysator.liu.se/c/bwk-tutor.html
>
> No, I can't agree. At time, maybe, but not now. Amongst the big
> problems are: no function prototypes, implicit int, old-style function
> definitions, the old =<op> syntax, unique structure tags (because they
> are all interchangeable), no initialisation of structures nor of local
> variables and '\0' as an end-of-file marker.
>
> But then there's almost no use of library functions, no unsigned types,
> no typedef, no long, no void, no const and all local declarations have
> to be at the start of a function. Some of these would, perhaps, be
> deliberately omitted from a first tutorial, but I would not students to
> learn that C has only four types: char, int float and double.
>
> I suppose it's still possible that this is the best tutorial but that
> says more about the others than it does about the suitability of this
> one (there are a lot of awful ones out there).
>

In short, along the lines of the same reasoning, could one say that K&R2
is still among the best choices available?

Le 18/12/2021 à 15:26, Bonita Montero a écrit :
> Am 18.12.2021 um 13:49 schrieb Torbjörn Svensson Diaz:
>
>>> Absolutely sufficient for this bad language:
>>> http://cslabcms.nju.edu.cn/problem_solving/images/c/cc/The_C_Programming_Language_%282nd_Edition_Ritchie_Kernighan%29.pdf
>
>
>> Thanks. But what is so bad about C in your opinion?
>
> Becaues C has only the simplest language facilities and
> you have to do anything on your own. Other languages make
> programming much easier.

So (even if that was kinda obvious from many of your other posts),
you're here in comp.lang.c *only* to endlessly claim C is really bad,
and to promote other languages, mainly C++ as far as I've read.

That's typical trolling.