Reviews for Learn C on the Mac (Learn Series)

1. Slow learning

   Rated 3 out of 5 stars, January 12th, 2010

   The book is really aimed at people who have never even touched programming, but it is still quite good and will probably help a lot of people.

2. Excellent

   Rated 5 out of 5 stars, September 12nd, 2009

   This is an excellent book that delivers good information at a pace that can easily be understood by complete beginners and is also good for people with experience but coming from a much different background (say scripting languages for example). The book is very easy and enjoyable to read, and it provides exercises at the end of each chapter which helps concepts sink in. The last third of the book (as mentioned in another review) picks up the pace a little and deals with quite a few tricky subjects well but definitely requires slowing down and going over a few times to get the best from. In this part of the book, although well explained, there are parts that could maybe have been a few pages longer with an extra example. At the end of it I felt like I had a good overall understanding of the language and have found it a good platform to build on for learning Objective-C and now C++, well balanced in that it doesn't overload for a beginner book nor does it feel like there's not enough.

3. Book crippled by mistakes - there are better C books out there

   Rated 2 out of 5 stars, August 12st, 2009

   The target audience for this book is people without any previous knowledge of programming.
   The first few chapter are intended to help users to install Xcode and the Mac programming tools. After this there is no other Mac specific information and you could learn the language with any other C book for beginners.
   
   The book is full of typos and conceptual mistakes, especially when describing key concepts of the language. Just a look at the errata page on the Apress website will give you an idea of the extent of the disaster. To make things worse the errata page is organised in chronological order of the error submissions and not in page order as you would normally expect.
   
   My recommendation is to go through the Xcode tutorial on the Apple website and then use another C beginner book as guide.

4. Need to learn the basics of C?

   Rated 5 out of 5 stars, June 12th, 2009

   Very well written, easy to follow. you feel like you are being led by the hand at a comfortable pace through most of this book. The last third of it though starts to cram in too much. I would recommend this book though as it is very useful.

5. Dave Mark's Writing Style Makes This A Wonderful Book

   Rated 5 out of 5 stars, January 12th, 2009

   I doubt that many people would consider reading a book about learning C to be fun but Dave mark has a wonderful writing style which makes this book very readable and, dare I say it, absorbing, all of which helps the information go in more easily.
   
   I read the book with some C knowledge but it filled in a lot of gaps for me (my purpose for reading it so it gets a big tick for that) and it is riddled with useful notes which clarify the subjects and add useful bits of extra knowledge. I'm sure that someone totally new to C will also find the book easy to follow and very clear so it definitely comes highly recommended from me.