Can anyone recomend a good intoduction to C...

[Werner Schiendl]

Hi Laura,

The only reason I can imagine at this point to go with plain C is that there
are a lot more platforms that support C than do support C++. This is mainly
a topic in embedded development and realtime platforms.

Since you can do almost anything in C++ that can be done in C with even the
same syntax I think personally it is better to get the high level concepts
first and learn to use of-the-shelve components like the standard library.
The standard library of C++ is in my opinion much more intuitive and easy to
use for a novice programmer than all that traditional C stuff. So I think,
given a good guide like the one I recommended, one will be up and running
much faster. In addition, you will not get into a lot of common pitfalls
common in C programming.

I further think it is easier to move 'back' from C++ to C, when the need
arises, than vice versa. This is simply because you are forced to use a
different technique if the one you are used to does not work on that
platform.
Personally I started with procedural programming and moved to the object
oriented technique afterwards. This is why I think it is hard to get used to
objects when you are used to malloc, free, memcpy and friends.

Did I miss an important point?

regards
Werner

Laura Creighton <lac at cd.chalmers.se> wrote in message
news:mailman.983894288.19965.python-list at python.org...
> Werner Schiendl <ws-news at gmx.at> writes:
> >If you have a good reason to choose C over C++, take the K&R book the
others
> >recommend.
> >
> >Otherwise you should consider going straight to C++.
> >This will save you hours of headache with C memory stuff, string
handling,
> >and so on.
>
> This leaves the novice with the idea that C programmers, by and large
> all became happy C++ programmers and are pleased as punch with the
> new language.  The reason to learn C is to eventually learn C++.
> This is misleading.
>
> There are a very large number of people who think that C
> is a terrific language; extremely good at what it does, and well worth
> studying, in part to understand what it is that a language designer
> does when he *gets* *it* *right*, while also believing that studying C++
is
> of particular use when you want to see what happens when a language
> designer *gets* *it* *wrong*.  Or when forced to do so at gunpoint.
>
> Laura Creighton
>