Reviews for Practical C Programming (A Nutshell handbook)

1. Excellent

   Rated 5 out of 5 stars, May 12th, 2008

   Most C beginner books teach you how to write C, this book teaches you how to write GOOD C. It teaches you all the tips and tricks that will save you time and stop you messing up in the future. It goes through step by step with little quizzes and exercises at the end of each chapter and it is a pleasure to read.
   A must for any wannabe GOOD C programmer and then after reading all of this book and trying all the exercises I recommend you move onto a more advanced C book "The C programming Language" by Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie.
   Nobody is a better authority on C than Ritchie seen as he created the C language and he will teach you even more about C but "The C Programming language" is NOT designed for beginners so purchase Practical C, read it, then get "The C programming language"

2. Yeah, so so....

   Rated 3 out of 5 stars, March 12th, 2004

   Despite the title, this book is aimed squarely at newbies to programming, but nowadays beginners tend to steer clear of C, prefering something less 'messy' like java as a first language (can't blame them really!). So i'm not entirely sure that a market for this book still exists (probably why they haven't released a new edition since '97). Anyway, this was the recommended text for my second year C/C++ course, and was a bit too simplistic and lacking in detail to be of much use. As another reviewer said, the section on pointers and memory management is very sketchy, and would of left me none the wiser, had I not already known about such things. The book would be good for people who need to learn some C, and whose basic programming skills are a bit rusty/non-existant. If you want a no nonsense, detailed grounding in C, k & r is still the place to look.

3. THE book to start learning C...

   Rated 5 out of 5 stars, November 12th, 2003

   ...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.

4. Some good content but badly outdated

   Rated 3 out of 5 stars, April 12th, 2003

   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.

5. Look for a cow on the cover Practical C not C++

   Rated 4 out of 5 stars, December 12st, 2002

   If there is not a cow on the cover of this book, you are reading the review for the wrong book. I bought this book for a C in UNIX class. The C part is great. There is hardly a page that does not have an example or enlightening diagram. However, the only reference to applying this to UNIX is in the back where it "Practically" says that there are different versions of UNIX. It never really clamed to be a UNIX book on C. The section on unbufferd I/O has a little more on the UNIX handling of files. Over all, until something better comes along I am still using this book.
   
   The C Programming Language (2nd Edition)