7 Jun
2013
7 Jun
'13
4:58 p.m.
On 07/06/13 6:16 PM, Dave McGuire wrote:
On 06/07/2013 05:35 PM, Tony Duell wrote:
Same here.
I tried to learn C from a variety of books and
got nowhere. I bought K&R
and it all made sense within an hour. Yes, it's expensive, and it's not a
thick book, but it's well worth the money...
I learned C from the original K&R book as well. It's an amazingly good book to learn from. I was intimidated by C initially,
but the K&R book
made it all easy.
Even now, every time I come across someone who "doesn't understand
pointers" because they're "too hard" (WTF? one of the simplest
concepts
in computing!), I teach them via the K&R book, and they "get it" almost
immediately.
Turns out this is true for many topics. Pick the wrong book and you're
screwed; pick the right one and you'll be fine.
(This keeps coming up with LYAH for learning Haskell. Many anecdotes
seem to show that it turns a lot of people OFF Haskell. Avoid it! If you
want a *good* Haskell text try Thompson's "Haskell: The Craft of
Functional Programming"[1]. I don't think there is any programmer who
couldn't follow this text and enjoy it.)
--Toby
[1] http://www.haskellcraft.com/craft3e/Home.html
-Dave