Scholarly Resources for CompSci Undergrads

C Programming Language

If you want to learn C

Here is what I would advise someone who wanted to learn to program a computer in C.

  1. Get a compiler
    1. The comp.lang.c frequently asked questions list has references for some free ones.

    2. Make sure your compiler works as a standard C compiler. Many (perhaps most) programs that can compile C do not act as ANSI/ISO C compiler by default. Those programs must treat standard C as a special option. If you are not compiling in standard C mode with those compilers then you are not learning C and are setting yourself up for trouble later.

      I have specific notes about gcc (the Free Software Foundation's C compiler).

  2. Use one of the following to learn from:

    For my comments about or publication details of K&R see my list of recommended technical books.

See Also

If C is not your first imperative (a.k.a procedural) programming language then I highly recommend The Elements of Programming Style (Second edition). For bibliographic details and further comments see my list of recommended technical books.

These notes are part of my references about C programming which can be found at http://www.csd.uwo.ca/~jamie/C/index.html. I think that, in time, you'll find the other documents listed there useful too.


http://www.csd.uwo.ca/~jamie/C/LearnC.html

Created on 21 August 1996. Last update 13 September 1996.

This document is copyright by its author, J. Blustein.

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