Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!tikal!hplsla!jima
From: jima@hplsla.HP.COM (jim adcock )
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: What's a good textbook?
Message-ID: <5260006@hplsla.HP.COM>
Date: 19 Jan 88 01:10:43 GMT
References: <523@cresswell.quintus.UUCP>
Organization: HP Lake Stevens, WA
Lines: 21

| I've been asked to recommend a textbook for someone with a math
| background who wants to learn C. Are there any other particularly good
| textbooks, especially ones which don't assume quite as much of a
| programming background?

/*$$ASBESTOS-SUIT ON */
/* ;-) ON */

IFF your friend is serious about math, and serious about programming, I
might (cautiously) recommend "The C++ Programming Language" 
by Bjarne Stroustrup, Addison-Wesley 1986.  It is very much along the
lines of K&R, but includes C++ information on how to write math classes
for mathematic entities more complicated than floating point numbers,
and have the resulting classes perform in pretty much the same way as
if they had been designed into the language from the start.  So your
friend could design complex math classes, vectors, matrices, sets, whatever,
and use them with standard "C" language mathematical notation: +, -, *, ++,
--, etc.

Needless to say, to use any of this stuff, you need a "C++" -type of 
"C" compiler.