Can Novices Jump Directly in C? (Books)

[Edward John Kalenda]

peregrin at hulaw1.harvard.edu writes:
> 	Can anyone recommend an introduction to programming book that uses C?
> I'm not referring to C-For-Pascal-Programmers etc. kind of books.  I'm aware
> that most introduction to programming books use Pascal, Basic, or Scheme as
> their language, but I haven't seen anybooks that start a novice out directly
> with C.

I must differ with all the other postings about C being a poor language
for the first time programmer to learn. It is a complicated language,
IF you dump all the features on the student at once. I have successfully
taught several people with NO programming experience the C language. The
trick is to convince them the computer will not do what you want it to do,
only what you tell it, and you must tell it in GREAT detail.

Most of the time I only use the K&R white book and the runtime reference
manual that goes with the compiler in use. "Learning to Program in C" by
Thomas Plum (Plum Hall, Inc.  ISBN 0-911537-00-7) is not bad.

Teach them the basic constructs, add structures about 2/3 through the class,
spend the last two weeks discussing the power features like pointer
arithmatic (sp?), passing addresses of scalers to functions, hardware
details like short/int/long relative sizes, unions, typedefs, pre-processor
macros, and mixed language programming. They can always get into the stuff
that will confuse them in an intermediate C class.

Ed
ekalenda at cup.portal.com