Product Description

There are lots of introductory C books, but this is the first one that has the no-nonsense, practical approach that has made Nutshell Handbooks(R) famous. C programming is more than just getting the syntax right. Style and debugging also play a tremendous part in creating programs that run well and are easy to maintain. This book teaches you not only the mechanics of programming, but also describes how to create programs that are easy to read, debug, and update. Practical rules are stressed. For example, there are fifteen precedence rules in C (&& comes before || comes before ?:). The practical programmer reduces these to two: Multiplication and division come before addition and subtraction. Put parentheses around everything else. Contrary to popular belief, most programmers do not spend most of their time creating code. Most of their time is spent modifying someone else's code. This books shows you how to avoid the all-too-common obfuscated uses of C (and also to recognize these uses when you encounter them in existing programs) and thereby to leave code that the programmer responsible for maintenance does not have to struggle with. Electronic Archaeology, the art of going through someone else's code, is described. This third edition introduces popular Integrated Development Environments on Windows systems, as well as UNIX programming utilities, and features a large statistics-generating program to pull together the concepts and features in the language.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #229531 in Books
• Published on: 1997-08-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 454 pages

Kenneth Wilcox, Boise Software Developers Group, Feb 2003
As scary as this may sound, this book actually makes C sound like fun!

From the Publisher
Practical C Programming teaches you not only the mechanics of programming, but also how to create programs that are easy to read, maintain, and debug. This third edition introduces popular Integrated Development Environments on Windows systems, as well as UNIX programming utilities, and features a large statistics-generating program to pull together the concepts and features in the language.

About the Author
Steve Oualline lives in Southern California, where he works as a software engineer for a major phone company. In his free time he is a real engineer on the Poway Midland Railroad. Steve has written almost a dozen books on programming and Linux software. His web site is http://www.oualline.com .

Customer Reviews

Some good content but badly outdated
This is an OK introduction to the C programming language but you can do much better.

It never really gets much beyond the basics, although there's some goodish material on coding linked lists and binary trees and suchlike. The best aspect is that it teaches good programming discipline and good coding style. The worst aspect is that it is badly out of date. This 3rd edition was published in 1997. Had it been up to date for 1997 it would still be useful, but it wasn't. An early chapter on IDEs discusses Turbo C++ and Visual C++ 1.0. Were you still using those in 1997? In a brief section on bitmapped graphics, I was shocked to read the following sentence: "More and more computers now have graphics. For the PC, there are graphics devices like EGA and VGA cards...". Really? EGA cards?

Yes, this book, like C, dates from ancient times when the mouse hadn't been invented, output devices were line-oriented and the graphical user interface a distant dream. Every programmer had to roll his own linked list and do his own memory management.

THE book to start learning C...
...or even improve your basic C skills with!

Steve Oualline, in this book, sets out how to write in C in a precise, easy to use fashion - even if you know next to nothing about how to write software. It's suitable for both getting started with embedded C and for PC based software, is explained in a manner that is neither condesending nor too highbrow.

Styling is covered in a sensible way, explaining both how you should make code readable for other people, but also that there isn't only one style that is correct.

Right through from getting your first "Hello World" program, through arrays, structures and pointers, topics are covered in a way to get the programmer started and give enough knowledge to experiment and expand your knowledge. Pitfalls and common problems are regularly outlined. There's even a great little chapter called "C's dustier corners" that tells of some of the parts of C you should avoid!

I've yet to find a better book about how to program in C.

Good beginners reference, use in conjunction with a bible
Good entry book to the language, teaches you basic programming style and how to start writing good C code.

You'll find yourself jumping back to the book as you write your first clusters of programs.

Later on, the book seems to bring you into advanced basic C programming if such a phrase makes sense..

I recommend that a C bible or reference book that is around the intermediate level is bought too.. you'll find yourself wanting to know more about whats available in C as you complete this book.

Overall, a good buy. OS independent on the whole. Dont buy this book if you're a beginner but want to integrate what you do into a Windows programming.. but buy this first before jumping into GUI programming anyway.