Sams' Teach Yourself C in 21 Days: Personal Training Kit contains complete BorlandC/C++ 3.1 Compiler

The core element in this package is the bestselling book, "Teach Yourself C in 21 Days". The inclusion of Borland's full-featured C++ 3.1 compiler makes this an outstanding value. The pre- and post-assessment testing products on the CD-ROM provide an interactive feature that lets the reader verify what he or she needs to learn. .

Still a very popular programming language because of its speed and portability, C is used worldwide in a variety of programming projects. Teach Yourself C in 21 Days combines a basic tutorial of C with a working compiler to offer a quick tour for the experienced programmer and introduce beginners to the language.

Early chapters outline the role of the C programming language in today's computing and get you started on using C with the bundled Borland C++ 3.1 compiler (which allows you to build 16-bit C programs in both DOS and Windows 3.1 that will also run under Windows 95/NT). The tutorial format breaks up the task of learning C into 21 manageable lessons, starting with basic keywords, variables and data types, statements, expressions, and operators. Early sections also introduce the basics of building functions, the foundations of structured programming, flow control, and console I/O.

The trickier parts of C, including pointers and memory management, come after the basics. The authors take care to show the pitfalls of C while giving the reader plenty of hands-on examples. In the third week of tutorials, more advanced topics, such as linked lists and sorting algorithms, appear quickly along with a tour of the built-in functions of the C run-time library. Overall, this tutorial provides everything you need to know about the C programming language to get started (though it does not touch on Windows GUI programming and relies instead on command-line examples). --Richard V. Dragan