Xref: utzoo comp.edu:2150 comp.lang.c:17300 comp.software-eng:1306 Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!ucdavis!ucdavis.ucdavis.edu!windley From: windley@cheetah.ucdavis.edu (Phil Windley/20000000) Newsgroups: comp.edu,comp.lang.c,comp.software-eng Subject: Re: Texts on fundamentals of programming/computer science Message-ID: Date: 30 Mar 89 22:54:05 GMT References: <354@cbnewsc.ATT.COM> Sender: uucp@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu Distribution: usa Organization: UCD Robotics Research Lab Lines: 35 In-reply-to: isaac@cbnewsc.ATT.COM's message of 30 Mar 89 00:55:28 GMT In article <354@cbnewsc.ATT.COM> isaac@cbnewsc.ATT.COM (isaac.j.champagne) writes: So what are some good texts that cover the fundamentals of programming? I'm particularly interested in: 1.A text with more examples than confusing computer science theory (preferably w/examples in C) 2.How about some good background in data structures? 3.How about programming paradigms? It seems like the "how to" of programming may be more important than lots of theories. Try "Data Structures: an Advanced Approach using C" by Esakov and Weiss is pretty good. That said, I think you're missing the point. You seem to think that you can be a good programmer without a funcdamental understanding of what's going on. This is a serious mistake. If you take programming as the act of translating someone else's desing into working C code, then you're probably going to be able to do that without a lot of theoretical knowledge. If you think that you can DESIGN programs without the kind of important background knowledge that theory provides then you're in for a rude awakening. For exmaple, how do you propose to choose the apporpriate data structure, for example, without understanding the theory behind the choices????? -- Phil Windley | windley@iris.ucdavis.edu Division of Computer Science | ucbvax!ucdavis!iris!windley College of Engineering | (916) 752-7324 (or 3168) University of California, Davis | Davis, CA 95616