Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Sam Yikin

macrumors regular
Oct 28, 2007
230
0
i wouldn't say any of those books are really "out of date"... there are still lots of basic information in those books that are valuable for learning... there's also "The Absolute Beginner's Guide To C (2nd edition)" from 1994 that might be of great help... check out the reviews of the book, you might want to order it right away and start fresh from there.

I would also like to recommend this book. Its a great way to learn C.
Just be warned, there are some things in it that don't apply to OS X.
You can ignore the section at the beginning about the compilers (see steps posted above for instruction on how to use Xcode.) Also, there are a few functions that don't seem to come with OSX
 

NickFalk

macrumors 6502
Jun 9, 2004
347
1
i wouldn't say any of those books are really "out of date"... there are still lots of basic information in those books that are valuable for learning... there's also "The Absolute Beginner's Guide To C (2nd edition)" from 1994 that might be of great help... check out the reviews of the book, you might want to order it right away and start fresh from there.
I think Darkroom's advice is right on the money. I personally used to be fluent in Pascal (a couple of decades ago) and grew up on Basic Dialects. Despite having a reasonable experience in what programming demands C seemed completely alien at first, as the syntax is often quite abstract compared to the two languages mentioned.

I checked out the book Darkroom mentions and while I occassionally find it a bit basic compared to my understanding I still found it extremely useful. I believe it is as perfect a beginner's book in C you'll ever find. It doesn't dive in and try to teach you every concept of the language at first, it just lets you try a few code tidbits first. As the reader becomes familiar with a few basic commands the writer starts elaborating the finer and more fundemental parts of C.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.