Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: C Primer Plus by Mitchell Waite, Stephen Prata, Donald Martin ISBN: 0-672-22582-4 Publisher: SAMS Pub. Date: April, 1987 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.67 (24 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Excellent book for absolute beginners
Comment: I have read "C Primer Plus" and want to recommend it to everyone who has an interest in learning a computer programming language. It is written with a touch that takes away all the fears and respect concerning difficulties a beginner might have. Prata's humourous style and pedagogic approach makes it easy to get a hold of programming techniques. Until chapter 6 the style pace is moderate but then quickens. By then you have been given the means to cope with all the terms and foreign commands and you read on, eager to learn more. The Appendix-section also makes it a rather good reference as long as you keep your programming on "the home front". I strongly recommend this book. Buy it if you want to extend your knowledge!
Rating: 5
Summary: A great start for new C programmers
Comment: Stephen Prata's "C Primer Plus, 4th Ed" (CPP4E) is an excellent book. I took a close look at the competition and even started reading O'Reilly's "Practical C Programming" before realizing CPP4E was the book for me. I had no C programming background, but had the knowledge of C-64 BASIC, Pascal, and other languages shared by many kids born in the 1970s. If you're looking for a well-conceived introduction to C, Prata's book is for you.
CPP4E impresses the reader on many levels. First, Prata's writing is exceptionally clear. He doesn't require you to dissect that one "key sentence" which encapsulates all the author has to say on a single topic. Prata defines all of his terms, uses them in examples, and reintroduces them when later new ideas require background presented earlier.
Second, CPP4E is a "teach yourself" manual. If you read the text, type in the examples, answer the review questions, and try at least some of the programming exercises, you will learn something. I typed many of the examples in the book by hand and also made use of the code supplied on the publisher's Web site. CPP4E should be used in classes as an introductory C book.
Third, it's evident a lot of thought and work went into publishing CPP4E. The index is thorough and applicable. The arrangement of topics makes sense. The diagrams are easy to decipher. The errata available on the publisher's Web site is comprehensive. I did find a few minor issues and submitted those to SAMS, which they acknowledged.
My only concern is the author's differentiation between "serious code" and "more relaxed programming." He says on p. 410 "in serious programming, you should use fgets() rather than gets(), but this book takes a more relaxed approach." Unfortunately, this relaxed approach is the reason why computers are constantly compromised. By now programmers should realize that users deploy their code in the most hostile of environments, and intruders will blow away anything that's not bullet proof. While Prata does show readers how to take more secure approaches, I'd like to see a security theme consistently applied throughout the fifth edition.
Overall, I strongly recommend CPP4E to anyone interested in an introduction to C. If you're looking for network programming, however, you won't find it here. Keep an eye on future reviews of mine for my picks on a socket programming guide. Keep in mind when reading this review that I'm a beginning C programmer. I'm not in a position to judge the author's style. However, I doubt many experienced programmers would read this entire book!
Rating: 5
Summary: Wow!!!! Perfect introduction to C programming :-)
Comment: 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! :-)
 |
Title: Absolute Beginner's Guide to Programming, Third Edition by Greg Perry ISBN: 0789729059 Publisher: Que Pub. Date: 20 November, 2002 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
 |
Title: C++ Primer Plus (4th Edition) by Stephen Prata ISBN: 0672322234 Publisher: SAMS Pub. Date: 15 December, 2001 List Price(USD): $49.99 |
 |
Title: C Programming Language (2nd Edition) by Brian W. Kernighan, Dennis Ritchie, Dennis M. Ritchie ISBN: 0131103628 Publisher: Prentice Hall PTR Pub. Date: 22 March, 1988 List Price(USD): $40.00 |
 |
Title: Sams Teach Yourself Java 2 in 24 Hours (3rd Edition) by Rogers Cadenhead ISBN: 0672324601 Publisher: SAMS Pub. Date: 22 October, 2002 List Price(USD): $24.99 |
 |
Title: 10 Minute Guide to Microsoft(R) Access 2002 by Joe Habraken ISBN: 0789726319 Publisher: Que Pub. Date: 20 August, 2001 List Price(USD): $14.99 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
