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From: diamond@diamond.csl.sony.junet (Norman Diamond)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Wanted: advice on a good C textbook
Message-ID: <10578@socslgw.csl.sony.JUNET>
Date: 19 Jul 89 02:32:58 GMT
References: <2790@ssc-vax.UUCP> <5005@ficc.uu.net> <1900@prune.bbn.com> <6381@bunker.UUCP>
Sender: news@csl.sony.JUNET
Reply-To: diamond@csl.sony.junet (Norman Diamond)
Organization: Sony Computer Science Laboratory Inc., Tokyo, Japan
Lines: 34

>>>> What I need is a good intro book to C
>>>> programming...

Please note the word "intro"

>>>I *highly* recommend _The C Puzzle Book_.

>>Ick.  I highly disrecommend this book.  It teaches you to debug code that
>>only a psychopath would write

In article <6381@bunker.UUCP> garys@bunker.UUCP (Gary M. Samuelson) writes:

>I haven't read _The C Puzzle Book_, but learning to debug code
>that only a psychopath (or should that be sociopath?) would write
>is a marketable skill.  In some places, it is a requirement.

Yes it is a necessary skill, but it is not a good introduction.
Please don't teach new students to write such nonsense.

Actually I feel that structured programming should not be taught in
first-year because students won't understand it.  They'll think that
just because they use "while" and "case," it's automatically structured.
First-year students should figure out whatever kind of structure they
wish.  Second-year students should be forced to make revisions to the
worst examples of first-year students' code (those psychopathic examples)
and then make similar revisions to examples of good code.  THEN teach the
structuring techniques that produced the good code, and the students will
understand!

--
Norman Diamond, Sony Computer Science Lab (diamond%csl.sony.jp@relay.cs.net)
  The above opinions are inherited by your machine's init process (pid 1),
  after being disowned and orphaned.  However, if you see this at Waterloo or
  Anterior, then their administrators must have approved of these opinions.