Rating: 
Summary: Yeah, I agree...
Review: ...perhaps it might be useful to adopt Eric Roberts' approach to learn computer science; learn the fundamentals. ... But if you would like to learn how to think like a Computer Scientist, this book is a great launching pad for future success. You learn from the ground up, and you go one step at a time so that you can understand and master the techniques and methodologies that will enable you to think more creatively and create more successfully when you move on to more advanced programming languages.
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Summary: The definitive book for beginning programmers
Review: Eric Roberts is a brilliant professor whose book makes learning C programming a real joy. The format is clear, the examples are pertinent, and the book does not "talk down" to the reader, as do many other computer books on the market. If you want an introduction to programming, there is no better choice than this book.
Rating:
Summary: The definitive book for beginning programmers
Review: Eric Roberts is a brilliant professor whose book makes learning C programming a real joy. The format is clear, the examples are pertinent, and the book does not "talk down" to the reader, as do many other computer books on the market. If you want an introduction to programming, there is no better choice than this book.
Rating:
Summary: Easily the best programming book I've read
Review: Fantastic.This book is intended as not a plain C tutorial, but an introduction to computer science in general, which just happens to teach C along the way. The whole point of the book is to hide C's complexity with libraries, so that it can be grasped easily by the beginning programmer. I have K&R's C book, and for learning programming in general, I'm *extremely* glad that he didn't delve into everything. Roberts' language is clear, precise, and he never confuses. To paraphrase Roberts, the libraries are a necessity to ensure that you don't lose sight of the forest for the trees.
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Summary: Excellent Introduction to Programming in C
Review: Having originally come from a non-programming background, I found this book an excellent stand-alone introduction to programming in general. The use of libraries allows you to learn one aspect of the language at a time instead of throwing everything at you at once. By the end of the book, you've learned all the fundamentals thoroughly and you understand enough to write the libraries yourself. The libraries are good helper functions that I've found useful in my later code and even in my code at the industry level. (Practicing decomposition and code-reuse is essential for developing a solid, long-term programming style) The book emphasizes good programming methodology rather than just concentrating on memorizing the syntactical. You can easily look up standard ansi C syntax in reference books like "The C Programming Language" by Kernighan and Ritchie (which I highly recommend), but you can't always find a book that covers basic programming concepts in general. The use of libraries instead of standard ANSI functions allows you to think flexibly, realizing that there are many levels of abstraction and that there are many ways of programming the same thing. This is especially beneficial when/if you go on to learn other languages. However, I would say that C is a good language to start out with because it encompasses more of the lower level details that may be hidden in other languages but are essential for understanding why your program works, isn't optimized, etc. Once you've finished this book, you can easily ease into the second book in this introductory series, Programming Abstractions in C, which takes you to the next step in becoming a good programmer. It explains many standard algorithms liked hashtables, linked lists, etc. The two books combined build a solid foundation for programming in C and leave you prepared to go into more complex algorithms and other languages. I highly recommend this book (I always keep it close at hand).
Rating: 
Summary: The Art and Science of C
Review: I borrowed this book from library and believed I had made a right decision. Quoted from the book, Mr. Roberts have been teaching computer science for over 20 years, I'm not sure how long he has taught C language but I suppose this book is written in a way that he believes is most beneficial to the readers, based on his teaching experience. C is a cryptic and complex language, so the author teaches in a stepwise manner, he hides the complexity by introducing his private libraries and data abstractions. So the readers implement the functionality of C, which is independent from the complexity of C; once the readers have enough grasp at C, they may move on to explore the complexity of C. The author have done these with good intention because data types in ANSI C are limited in size, for example, the data type int is different from our perception of integer in daily life. The address operator & may be confusing as well. How did I use the book? I rewrited all the examples presented in book without his private libaries. I did the exercises in the book without his private libraries as well. Instead of copying all his codes and getting them work, I tried to make errors: for example, in the simple hello world program, omitted the preprocessor operator #, then read the error messages. I also tried to improve the efficiency of my algorithm. This maybe a good introductory book for people who have experience in programming in languages other than C since the syntax of C may confuse them, but owning it is not recommended.
Rating:
Summary: The Art and Science of C
Review: I borrowed this book from library and believed I had made a right decision. Quoted from the book, Mr. Roberts have been teaching computer science for over 20 years, I'm not sure how long he has taught C language but I suppose this book is written in a way that he believes is most beneficial to the readers, based on his teaching experience. C is a cryptic and complex language, so the author teaches in a stepwise manner, he hides the complexity by introducing his private libraries and data abstractions. So the readers implement the functionality of C, which is independent from the complexity of C; once the readers have enough grasp at C, they may move on to explore the complexity of C. The author have done these with good intention because data types in ANSI C are limited in size, for example, the data type int is different from our perception of integer in daily life. The address operator & may be confusing as well. How did I use the book? I rewrited all the examples presented in book without his private libaries. I did the exercises in the book without his private libraries as well. Instead of copying all his codes and getting them work, I tried to make errors: for example, in the simple hello world program, omitted the preprocessor operator #, then read the error messages. I also tried to improve the efficiency of my algorithm. This maybe a good introductory book for people who have experience in programming in languages other than C since the syntax of C may confuse them, but owning it is not recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Two great books
Review: I have read and worked through both of Eric Roberts books on C.
Of all the programming books I have read, and there are many, his two are the best.
My only regret is that he has not written books on C++.
Rating: 
Summary: A well written book with essential programs that don't work
Review: I have to admit that I liked the book in the beginning. I thought it was well structured and clearly written. But my question is what is the use of a good book if you can not even run the programs because the extended libraries won't work as advertised. The publisher and the author ought to share the responsibility to lessen the burden on the readers by making sure the down-loaded programs indeed work. The added frustration is: where to turn to if they don't work. Please test the programs to make sure they will work for new versions of C/C++ compilers or at least give us a warning or even charge a fee for the patch. What a headache trying endlessly to make Roberts' entended libraries work!
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Summary: In defense of the libraries.
Review: I think the book is an excellent introduction to C placing emphasis on appropriate concepts. All the criticism I have read up to this point basically focuses on the autthor's use of libraries, so let me try to address that. First, the reviewers give the impression that libraries are difficult to obtain or install. That is simply not true. The libraries are in public domain and available via anonimous FTP. Second, any reasonable program will use some library facilities: the programming environment may make the fact more or less aparent. To take just one example, I doubt any of the reviewers would go implementing a GUI toolkit from scratch any time they wanted to give a GUI to their program: it's just not worth it. C is known for keeping the language small, and leaving it up to the libraries to implement a lot of common functionality. So, the choice is not between using libraries and not using libraries, but rather between using ANSI libraries and using other libraries. Using ANSI libraries have the advantage of being standardized. They also have the disadvantage of being potentially incomprehensible to the beginning programmer. As far as I can tell, that was the author's motivation for choosing to use the libraries he developped, not a vicious desire to confuse students. The usual ways of dealing with strings and I/O _are_ introduced in the book in due course: after enough C has been introduced that the reader has a fighting chance at actually comprehending their interface. Eric Roberts clearly explains the reasons for his decision to use separately-developped libraries on page XV of the book. I feel that the book's focus on abstraction and honesty about the programming/debugging process make it a very good introduction to programming indeed.
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