C Programming Absolute Beginner's Guide (3rd Edition)

I had gotten a different C Programming book that wasn't as clear cut and good for beginners, but this is a perfect way to introduce C to those learning on their own like myself. I would recommend this without hesitation.

I have had a completely different experience with this book than the other reviewers. I had programmed with C many years ago and purchased as a review, little did I know that it would turn into an interesting exercise in error correction. Errors sometimes result in incorrect statements that may misguide a beginner. I don't recommend this book to anyone. A much better purchase (although at twice the price) is Programming in C by Kochan, third edition (or a similar book). I think that the explanations should be understandable by beginners with a little extra thought and practice with entering and executing the examples.

Don't buy this book! Waste of money! The exercises don't work! I sent an e-mail to the address provided (they explicitly say that one can contact them in case any questions arise); to date, after weeks, I have not heard from these people! This is supposed to be for absolute beginners; and beginners are normally not able to discover the errors in the programs of the author!

It is Certainly not for beginners, the author assumes the reader already knows Computer speak. I constantly had to look up the definitions of the words he was using, it got so frustrating I just gave up. He also asks you to do tasks that have no meaning, at least not at first, and I found myself always having to go back and reread previous sections, in order to make since of the current sections I was reading. Definitely NOT for a beginner.

This is a clearly written introduction to C for people who haven't coded before. If you're a newbie to coding and mention of pointers has you breaking out in a cold sweat, then I'd recommend this book. If you're looking for something a bit more sophisticated, something that covers things like pointers to functions and linked lists, look elsewhere -- my favorites are Kochan's "Programming in C" and Horton's "Beginning C."

Perry's C Programming Absolute Beginner's Guide is exactly what the title states; this book is perfect for beginners who are starting their adventure in C programming - or in any language in general. However, if you're already taken an Intro to Programming Course or have experience with any programming language, you should take a look at Kochan's Programming in C book.

This book walks you through the fundamental basics of programming, from understanding C programs to pointers and data structures. Everything is explained in a straightforward manner and is aimed at answering all the basic questions in a non-technical format. By the end of this book, you can be sure to understand the basics to programming and how to start programming programs in C. With or without concurrently enrolling in a Programming course, you can still be able to learn fundamentals of C programming with just this book.

This book is for true beginners to programming. Its goal is to give you an overview of C with the minimum of stress. Chapters are short, with very clear writing and attractive layout.

It starts by leading you through installing Code::Blocks, a free coding environment that works on Windows, Linux, and Mac. The text is very easy to work through. It is mostly just type this text, click that button, and inspect the result. Each chapter is a description of some language feature then an example program to run. There are no exercises, review questions, or any of the activities usually found in programming books. At the end of the book is a complete Draw Poker program for you to compile and run.

On the down side, the sample code has errors and access to the errata sheet, if it exists, requires registration. I do think the sample programs tend to be longer than needed to illustrate a point.

The intent of this book is to survey the basic features of C with a minimum of work from you, and it does a good job of that. Just remember that programming is a skill, which can be gained only through significant effort. This book will not bring you to the point of being able to write substantial programs, but it will prepare you for a C tutorial that assumes some programming background. If you are a total novice who needs to be led by the hand, but are ready to put some effort into it, I would suggest Gookin's Beginning Programming with C for Dummies.

A beginner's book shouldn't teach bad programming habits like using the function with an implicit int type. Otherwise the book is plain boring with no flesh out example until the last chapter. I also think that leaving functions for the last chapter of the book was a bad idea. A better alternative to this book is Zed Shaw's book "Learn C the hard way" (but only if you read the book and watch the videos in parallel).

I have been trying to learn programming off and on for 25 years and haven't been able to "get into it" until now with this book. I have tried all the books, like "Learn C++ in 15 minutes on the Bus" and the lot, college courses- you name it. But this book is something special. It's like the veil has been lifted on programming. The clouds have parted and the sun is shining through. C programming is so well taught and easy to understand it seems unreal, like I'm having a dream in which I understand how to program computers. Highly recommended for the frustrated, looping individual like me who wants to get off the ground programming but hasn't found the right teacher.

The book is good. But I removed two stars because there are so many small errors in the programs reflected in the book. I don't understand how the writer went ahead with the 3rd edition printing with so many errors. Nearly every program has some minor errors. I think the writer having published the book, should take more seriously that his content is perfect. The study matter is good, but programs have to to be updated to perfection.

Perry's C Programming Absolute Beginner's Guide is exactly what the title states; this book is perfect for beginners who are starting their adventure in C programming - or in any language in general. However, if you're already taken an Intro to Programming Course or have experience with any programming language, you should take a look at Kochan's Programming in C book.

This book walks you through the fundamental basics of programming, from understanding C programs to pointers and data structures. Everything is explained in a straightforward manner and is aimed at answering all the basic questions in a non-technical format. By the end of this book, you can be sure to understand the basics to programming and how to start programming programs in C. With or without concurrently enrolling in a Programming course, you can still be able to learn fundamentals of C programming with just this book.

This book is for true beginners to programming. Its goal is to give you an overview of C with the minimum of stress. Chapters are short, with very clear writing and attractive layout.

It starts by leading you through installing Code::Blocks, a free coding environment that works on Windows, Linux, and Mac. The text is very easy to work through. It is mostly just type this text, click that button, and inspect the result. Each chapter is a description of some language feature then an example program to run. There are no exercises, review questions, or any of the activities usually found in programming books. At the end of the book is a complete Draw Poker program for you to compile and run.

On the down side, the sample code has errors and access to the errata sheet, if it exists, requires registration. I do think the sample programs tend to be longer than needed to illustrate a point.

The intent of this book is to survey the basic features of C with a minimum of work from you, and it does a good job of that. Just remember that programming is a skill, which can be gained only through significant effort. This book will not bring you to the point of being able to write substantial programs, but it will prepare you for a C tutorial that assumes some programming background. If you are a total novice who needs to be led by the hand, but are ready to put some effort into it, I would suggest Gookin's Beginning Programming with C for Dummies.

A beginner's book shouldn't teach bad programming habits like using the function with an implicit int type. Otherwise the book is plain boring with no flesh out example until the last chapter. I also think that leaving functions for the last chapter of the book was a bad idea. A better alternative to this book is Zed Shaw's book "Learn C the hard way" (but only if you read the book and watch the videos in parallel).

I have been trying to learn programming off and on for 25 years and haven't been able to "get into it" until now with this book. I have tried all the books, like "Learn C++ in 15 minutes on the Bus" and the lot, college courses- you name it. But this book is something special. It's like the veil has been lifted on programming. The clouds have parted and the sun is shining through. C programming is so well taught and easy to understand it seems unreal, like I'm having a dream in which I understand how to program computers. Highly recommended for the frustrated, looping individual like me who wants to get off the ground programming but hasn't found the right teacher.

The book is good. But I removed two stars because there are so many small errors in the programs reflected in the book. I don't understand how the writer went ahead with the 3rd edition printing with so many errors. Nearly every program has some minor errors. I think the writer having published the book, should take more seriously that his content is perfect. The study matter is good, but programs have to to be updated to perfection.

I really enjoyed reading this book, but I have to dock it points for the large quantity of errors it contains. While I'm not a beginner programmer, I've only toiled in C before so I took on this book in hopes it would give me a much rounder understanding, which it did nicely. My main concern was with the math chapter though, the author clearly is not good friends with math, as this chapter has some cringe worthy errors.

Overall, this book teaches you the basics of programming in general(data types, if, else, while, for, functions, ect) and it also teaches you things much more general to C such as memory management which was the golden portion of the book. It could have used an actual proof read, but other than that I would suggest this book to any programmer like me who started learning a high level language(I started with java) who wants an introduction to the dirty side of lower level languages.

To be honest, this one of the very best programming books I have ever read. Chapters are short, to the point, and not boring at all. The author does an excellent job in keeping the material fresh and exciting as much as possible. The book is great, but the Kindle version for the PC has some missing characters. I wouldn't recommend buying the Kindle, because it has text that is missing, especially when you get to the increment operators. I recommend using Code::Blocks as the IDE or even XCode if you have a Mac and use the Debug features. For example, type in the code from the book and use the "Next Line" F7 key or "Step Into" from the debug menu. Also, open up the Watches debug window so you can see exactly what is happening Line-By-Line. The Watches window will show you what the variables' values and the changes that occur line-by-line as you step through the code. This is the only flaw of this book, is that it doesn't teach folks how to step line-by-line in the code. This is very useful for those new to programming or the code is complicated and you need to go line-by-line to understand what is going on.

Programming in C can be like driving an old Porsche. Very powerful and fast, manual gearbox, no anti-locking brakes, no airbags and no crash protection. So many people say that if you can master this kind of car you are well prepared for any other car including the family vans with 15 airbags and everything in bumper-car mode. That is also true for coding in C and therefore learning C makes a lot of sense.

This is a new book with a C11 logo on the cover, but the authors still teach driving the old Porsche like you did several decades ago. From a teaching perspective the book is quite good, but in my opinion it is not ok to simply ignore most aspects of secure programming and error handling, especially for beginners. Yes, there are some info boxes with general warnings about buffer overflows, but no helpful recommendations. It is like saying "if you are too fast into a bend you should make sure you do not crash!" Will that make you a better driver? Probably not.

What the authors do with this book is to focus just on a quick and dirty way of getting things done and that is an irresponsible message to beginners. Nobody can expect advanced techniques in an "absolute beginners" book that's perfectly ok, but providing e.g. programming examples with the gets() function without any word of warning the this command has been replaced long ago and that it is not recommended in C11 for security reasons is quite odd. Today there a lot of new functions and libraries C that pimp the original language with up to date technology that will save your life even if you are not a professional stunt driver (coder).

Mentioning and also using some of these new practices would not have sacrificed the purpose of a beginner's book. So why bother republishing a book that is not up to date and incomplete?

Pros:
* the book is easy to read.
* what it explains, it explains reasonably well.
Cons:
* the book contains quite a few mistakes.
* no-one seems to have proof-read the code fragments; also, the type setting of the code is quite bad.
* the cover advertises "Updated for C11". I wonder where this updating has taken place? On p.177, the use of gets() is explained, but this function was deprecated in C99, and removed altogether from C11 in favor of gets_s. Other than that, the book doesn't bring you anywhere near the level were C11-specific features are used -- in other words: it teaches you the fundamentals of C that have barely changed in the past 30 years.
* on several occasions, the authors suggest the reader should not be afraid of math. I wonder if they are projecting their own fears or lack of math skills; otherwise, I cannot explain how (on page 183) they can claim that the mathematical equivalent of pow(4, 6) is 4^(6x6x6x6x6x6).
All in all: the book offers you the bare minimum to write simple programs, and leaves you with some knowledge but little insight. I'd give it 2.5 stars if I could.