Rating: 
Summary: Wow!!!! Perfect introduction to C programming :-)
Review: Wow! What an awesome book! First, let me tell you that I had tried many a time to learn C before, but until I read this book it wasn't "sinking in" (important things like pointers, the fact that functions copied their parameters and that's why scanf() uses the address, etc). Of course, the bits and pieces that I did pick up probably helped quite a bit (in fact, I'm sure they did).This book basically teaches you the majority of C's syntax, only the most important library functions, and finally, a little bit about coding style (sprinkled throughout the text). It also does a VERY GOOD job of explaining binary, hex and octal numbers and binary operations like and, or, and xor (among others). Oh, and when I say syntax, I mean syntax; I'm not referring to library functions, which are so numerous that one should use either an online or hard-copy manual for them (although, as I say, the most important ones are, of course, covered). Make sure to look somewhere else for information on realloc(), and strdup() comes in handy if you're using the GCC compiler. The only thing I might say is a tad lacking in this text is something that most introductory texts ("primers") don't talk all that much about. The very last chapter tries to explain linked lists, queues, and binary search trees. They do a good job of explaining them and of how ADTs work, etc., but I am still thinking I can get a better explanation. They did do a pretty good job for squeezing it into one chapter, though.But don't let that slight problem steer you away from this book! If you want to learn C, START WITH THIS BOOK!! I just ordered another book called "Mastering Algorithms in C" (by Kyle Loudon) that I'm hoping will be a good "next step". It covers not only linked lists, queues, and binary search trees, but several other algorithms that are commonly used and seem to be handy. Before teaching you these algorithms, however, pointers, recursion and "algorithm basics" are covered. From reading the user reviews I've decided that's probably the way to go, but don't take my word for it; all I'm saying is that after this book, it's probably a good idea to find a book on algorithms as your "next step". Happy reading! :-)
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