Al Stevens Teaches C: An Interactive Tutorial/Book and Disk

For beginning to intermediate programmers who want to expand their horizons, this is the perfect introduction to the world-standard C language. The text provides easy-to-follow lessons that link fundamental programming concepts with the grammar and syntax of C. Disk includes Quincy, a fully functional C interpreter that can be used immediately, and supports the reader's own new programs.

C and C + + are definitely the hot languages, if the raw output of the publishing industry is any clue. The author, a columnist for Dr. Dobb's Journal, boasts of his invention of at least a 100,000 lines of C. So are we in safe hands? Stevens asks his readers to trust him as he explains C with lines of C. The first chapter takes you right into a short program that includes a number of C concepts that may not be obvious to a beginner at first blush. Is it fair to ask a beginner to try to understand a preprocessor directive in the first chapter (something that won't be treated in detail until the end of the book)? Despite the weight of Stevens's authority and his code experiences, his approach may not be right for mere mortals. Perhaps it's just for programmers with other languages in their minds. The book includes Quincy, a MS-DOS C interpreter, so you can do the exercises, even if you don't quite follow Stevens's leaps. In eight chapters, Stevens touches all of the C bases in this book, such as variables, constants, functions, libraries, flow control, and other issues. But you might look at another C introduction if you really are a neophyte.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.