Member Avatar for ~s.o.s~

EDIT: Please note, as I write this, the post is now 6 years old and might have some outdated information. I'd personally recommend beginners start with "Learn C the hard way" by Zed and this book since I have heard good things about them. Reading the FAQ put together by the C newsgroup folks might be a good idea.

List of free compilers and IDE

1) Codeblocks IDE integrated with MINGW compiler can be downloaded at http://www.codeblocks.org/downloads.shtml

2) Visual Studio Express Edition

3) Pelles C IDE

List of Tutorials

C programming tutorials 4th edition
http://www.iu.hio.no/~mark/CTutorial/CTutorial.html#Preface

C standard function reference
http://www.cppreference.com
http://www.utas.edu.au/infosys/info/documentation/C/CStdLib.html#Contents

Excellent site for free compilers, libraries, tutorials etc.
http://www.thefreecountry.com/documentation/onlinereferences.shtml

C programming Notes
http://www.eskimo.com/~scs/cclass/notes/sx1.html

Programming in C
http://www.scit.wlv.ac.uk/~jphb/cbook/html/

Excellent site a must see for all newbies
http://www.cprogramming.com/tutorial.html
http://www.physics.drexel.edu/courses/Comp_Phys/General/C_basics/c_tutorial.html

Link to many programming tutorials
http://www.programmingtutorials.com/c.aspx
http://www.freeprogrammingresources.com/ctutor.html
http://www.tutorialized.com/tutorials/C-and-Cpp/1
http://www.techtutorials.info/cgen.html
http://www.intelligentedu.com/newly_researched_free_training/C.html
http://www.cyberdiem.com/vin/tutorials.html


Pointer and other topic specific resources
http://pweb.netcom.com/~tjensen/ptr/cpoint.htm
http://www.augustcouncil.com/~tgibson/tutorial/
http://www.newty.de/fpt/index.html

Advice and warnings for C
http://www.brainbell.com/tutors/c/Advice_and_Warnings_for_C/

Interfacing ODBC and C
http://www.physics.drexel.edu/courses/Comp_Phys/General/C_basics/c_tutorial.html


- sos

Edited by Ezzaral because: Sticky
  • 34 Contributors
  • 41 Replies
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  • 8 Years Discussion Span
  • Latest Post Latest Post by mack1
Salem commented: Looking good +13
tux4life commented: Very nice :) +4
westsider123 commented: Thanks a lot! Really helpful! +0
alaa sam commented: Thanks a lot you really helped me to get started with c +0
\007 commented: Nice C guide~ +0
thendrluca commented: Usefull +0
Moschops commented: Bloodshed Dev C++ has become a bad choice in the last six years and needs removing. -2
Gribouillis commented: great thread +0
Member Avatar for Dave Sinkula
commented: Well categorized :) +4
Member Avatar for ~s.o.s~

First of all, thanks for the sticky Mr. Dave.

Here is a list of some of the free books available on the net which should be present in the collection of each and every graphic programmer.

Free Game Programming ebooks ( general and Opengl related)

The openGL red book
http://www.opengl.org/documentation/red_book/

OpenGL programming guide
http://fly.srk.fer.hr/~unreal/theredbook/

Michael Abrash's Graphics Programming Black Book
http://public.planetmirror.com/pub/gpbb/

Waiting for the feedback of all you ppl.
Hope it helped.

Yours friend,
~s.o.s~

Member Avatar for ~s.o.s~
Member Avatar for ~s.o.s~

Looks like no one is intrested in posting their resources or the things which they know, but still i would continue helping other people out.

Here are some more links which are related to graphics programming using OpenGL.

Intro Opengl and C
http://www.eecs.tulane.edu/www/Terry/OpenGL/Introduction.html

THe all famous Nehe tuts for beginners
nehe.gamedev.net/

OpenGl advanced samples
http://www.xmission.com/~nate/tutors.html

Excellent site must see for all
http://www.lighthouse3d.com/opengl/index.shtml

commented: Keep Up The Good Work-[Grunt] +1
commented: i like it very well +0
Member Avatar for Shane_Warne

People who want to have command-line gcc on their windows system, should take a look at
MingW (DevCPP is also based on this)-This page is enough to get your system up and running
Cygwin.

Member Avatar for WolfPack

Steve Loughran's WinAPI FAQ

This isn't exactly starting material and maybe a bit outdated (created before Win2K). But overall covers most of the questions a newbie, who is new to programming in C and is fedup with creating Hello World console applications, may ask.

Member Avatar for satish.ambition

i thjink C is moreovewr like a SEA ,
the more u read the more u learn and there is no ending for it,,,

I like C series by Yashwant Kanetwar

Member Avatar for xeto

This isn't exactly starting material and maybe a bit outdated (created before Win2K). But overall covers most of the questions a newbie, who is new to programming in C and is fedup with creating Hello World console applications, may ask.

Member Avatar for Beair.GQ 
while(true)
{
printf("it's good idea,and all of those can help us to learn c program well!\n");
}
Member Avatar for NetByte

Based on the request by Mr. Jamshid i thought why not just start the useful links and tutorials for novice C programmers so they dont have to do a lot of GOOGLE like the one present in Python Forums.

If the moderators like the concept here they can sticky this or delete this post if they dont like it.

If this thread manages to stay, anyone intrested can post any important links or resources they know of and can start a new thread if they have any doubts.

List of free compilers and IDE

1) Codeblocks IDE integrated with MINGW compiler can be downloaded at http://www.codeblocks.org/downloads.shtml

2) Bloodshed Dev C++ IDE with MINGW port of GCC as its compiler at http://www.bloodshed.net/devcpp.html

3) Visual Studio Express Edition


List of Tutorials

C programming tutorials 4th edition
http://www.iu.hio.no/~mark/CTutorial/CTutorial.html#Preface

C standard function reference
http://www.cppreference.com
http://www.utas.edu.au/infosys/info/documentation/C/CStdLib.html#Contents

Excellent site for free compilers, libraries, tutorials etc.
http://www.thefreecountry.com/documentation/onlinereferences.shtml

C programming Notes
http://www.eskimo.com/~scs/cclass/notes/sx1.html

Programmign in C
http://www.scit.wlv.ac.uk/~jphb/cbook/html/

Excellent site a must see for all newbies
http://www.cprogramming.com/tutorial.html
http://www.howstuffworks.com/c.htm
http://www.physics.drexel.edu/courses/Comp_Phys/General/C_basics/c_tutorial.html

Link to many programming tutorials
http://www.programmingtutorials.com/c.aspx
http://www.freeprogrammingresources.com/ctutor.html
http://www.tutorialized.com/tutorials/C-and-Cpp/1
http://www.techtutorials.info/cgen.html
http://www.intelligentedu.com/newly_researched_free_training/C.html
http://www.cyberdiem.com/vin/tutorials.html


Pointer and other topic specific resources
http://pweb.netcom.com/~tjensen/ptr/cpoint.htm
http://www.augustcouncil.com/~tgibson/tutorial/
http://www.newty.de/fpt/index.html

Advice and warnings for C
http://www.brainbell.com/tutors/c/Advice_and_Warnings_for_C/

Interfacing ODBC and C
http://www.physics.drexel.edu/courses/Comp_Phys/General/C_basics/c_tutorial.html


Waiting for the feedback of all the members and would be really happy if you would carry on adding more links to this thread so that a newbie would not have to search a lot on the net regarding how to start on C.

Regards
~s.o.s~

hey ~s.o.s.~

just want to add this to your list of "Free" C IDE and compilers List:

Pelles C IDE - http://www.smorgasbordet.com/pellesc/

for windows/windows mobile development in C(C99 standard) with support for 32-bit (X86), 64-bit (X64) Windows, and Windows Mobile (ARM).

other than that GCC is just fine with Vi/Vim for C programming in GNU/Linux :)

Member Avatar for shric

Can you please remove the HowStuffWorks link from the original post or better yet point out that it's horrible. It is full of information that ranges from misleading to outright incorrect, which could be harmful to someone learning C. An except from the section on Using Pointers with Arrays for example:

#define MAX 10
/* snip */
int a[MAX];
int b[MAX];

Arrays in C are unusual in that variables a and b are not, technically, arrays themselves. Instead they are permanent pointers to arrays. a and b permanently point to the first elements of their respective arrays -- they hold the addresses of a[0] and b[0] respectively. Since they are permanent pointers you cannot change their addresses. The statement a=b; therefore does not work.

This of course is blatantly incorrect. The author of the article seems to be confused by the fact that a and b are converted to a pointer to their first elements when applied to an operator other than sizeof and unary &. This does not make them pointers or "permanent pointers" (ref. ISO/IEC 9899:1999 6.3.2.1#3)

There are many other examples, including but not limited to:

  • Variable Types :

    An int is a 4-byte integer value. A float is a 4-byte floating point value. A char is a 1-byte single character (like "a" or "3"). A string is declared as an array of characters.

    There are a number of derivative types:

    double (8-byte floating point value)
    short (2-byte integer)
    unsigned short or unsigned int (positive integers, no sign bit)

    Here, the author apparently thinks C is defined in terms of the sizes of types that happen to be on his implementation. To say "a string is declared as an array of characters" is to imply that any array of characters is a string, and of course the criteria for a string includes being null terminated. There are numerous other occurrences throughout the article of the author assuming certain implementation defined values and asserting they are always those values.

  • Mostly main will be correctly defined to return int, but sometimes the good old horrible "void main" pops up.
  • Uses gets() without explaining that it's harmful, let alone why. Uses fgets() later, but doesn't mention using it instead of gets().
  • casts the return value of malloc . This is a controversial issue .
  • Uses the term "pointer to array" when referring to an a pointer to the first element of the array. This example demonstrates the difference:
    int a[42];
int *p = a; /* p is a pointer to a[0] */
int (*q)[42] = &a; /* q is a pointer to the [entire] array */
  • For scanf, it says you "MUST put & in front of the variable used in scanf" but of course this would be wrong for %s, and it doesn't cover this or why.

If I'm accused of nitpicking, I certainly didn't have much trouble finding errors. Every page I looked at seems to have something dubious on it. You might also argue that the above issues are technicalities and beyond the scope of a beginner's C tutorial. This well may be the case, but then perhaps there should be some footnotes explaining this. It doesn't excuse it, and I'm sure I could produce another 10-20 examples if I had the time.

commented: good post +22
commented: Indeed +36
commented: Done; thanks for the heads up. +29
Member Avatar for Salem

Agrees. The first half isn't too shabby.
But it looks for all the world like the 2nd half was written by someone else without a clue.

Member Avatar for Gaiety

Based on the request by Mr. Jamshid i thought why not just start the useful links and tutorials for novice C programmers so they dont have to do a lot of GOOGLE like the one present in Python Forums.

If the moderators like the concept here they can sticky this or delete this post if they dont like it.

If this thread manages to stay, anyone intrested can post any important links or resources they know of and can start a new thread if they have any doubts.

List of free compilers and IDE

1) Codeblocks IDE integrated with MINGW compiler can be downloaded at http://www.codeblocks.org/downloads.shtml

2) Bloodshed Dev C++ IDE with MINGW port of GCC as its compiler at http://www.bloodshed.net/devcpp.html

3) Visual Studio Express Edition

4) Pelles C IDE

List of Tutorials

C programming tutorials 4th edition
http://www.iu.hio.no/~mark/CTutorial/CTutorial.html#Preface

C standard function reference
http://www.cppreference.com
http://www.utas.edu.au/infosys/info/documentation/C/CStdLib.html#Contents

Excellent site for free compilers, libraries, tutorials etc.
http://www.thefreecountry.com/documentation/onlinereferences.shtml

C programming Notes
http://www.eskimo.com/~scs/cclass/notes/sx1.html

Programmign in C
http://www.scit.wlv.ac.uk/~jphb/cbook/html/

Excellent site a must see for all newbies
http://www.cprogramming.com/tutorial.html
http://www.physics.drexel.edu/courses/Comp_Phys/General/C_basics/c_tutorial.html

Link to many programming tutorials
http://www.programmingtutorials.com/c.aspx
http://www.freeprogrammingresources.com/ctutor.html
http://www.tutorialized.com/tutorials/C-and-Cpp/1
http://www.techtutorials.info/cgen.html
http://www.intelligentedu.com/newly_researched_free_training/C.html
http://www.cyberdiem.com/vin/tutorials.html


Pointer and other topic specific resources
http://pweb.netcom.com/~tjensen/ptr/cpoint.htm
http://www.augustcouncil.com/~tgibson/tutorial/
http://www.newty.de/fpt/index.html

Advice and warnings for C
http://www.brainbell.com/tutors/c/Advice_and_Warnings_for_C/

Interfacing ODBC and C
http://www.physics.drexel.edu/courses/Comp_Phys/General/C_basics/c_tutorial.html


Waiting for the feedback of all the members and would be really happy if you would carry on adding more links to this thread so that a newbie would not have to search a lot on the net regarding how to start on C.

Regards
~s.o.s~

following site is not accessible its showing no authorization

Interfacing ODBC and C
http://www.physics.drexel.edu/course..._tutorial.html

i am plannig to add few more sites here, just checking what are all present here to avoid repetition.

Member Avatar for ekdalia

I have been using a computer for sometime but never had time to learn programming. On retirement I now plan to try my hand on programming.
Some browsing gives me an idea (may be incorrect) that I strat straightway with "C" as it is a mid-level language and also I have the book "C for Dummies" with me.
Is my plan OK or shall I try some other language wither a book on that ?
Also I shall be obliged if somebody can give a short guide from this thread Starting " C "
Regards.

Member Avatar for skyspace_as

I saw forum Java, after read totural Java, i wonder while...if you want to learn java successfully, you need to study C firstly.
I am a beginner, i want to have a good knownledge about IT. I am going to begin from here;)
Thanks for you help, guy!

Member Avatar for xavier666

Even after starting C, most books (or links) only say what we should do. But the user(for me example) remains ignorant about the "DO NOTS", and by mistake, might indulge into the wrong programming practices. This link will surely help.

Member Avatar for fishnology

hi everyone,
am beginner and i don't really know how to start learning C, but i've got motivation, to learn it. reading your comments guys, i guessed it's not easy to learn it but i'll try to do my best ..

Member Avatar for frank33

I may well have to learn C and/or C++, run as an interpreter on Excel spreadsheets
( though not ChExcel or anything downloadable from the net ).

First question is the relationship between C and C++.
I understand that C++ is a 'superset' of C.
Does this mean it is possible to study C FIRST and THEN 'add' C++ ?
( Rather than learn how to do something one way with C and then learn a different way for C++ ) .

Second, what, if anything, is the significance of using an interpreter rather than a compiler ? Thanks.

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