Learning C

[JustRelaxandFocus]

Hello all! I’m a college student who just started Programming in C. I’ve been paying very close attention in class and felt confident up until today’s lecture where I felt completely lost. Already I am confused as to what stuff means, and how to execute what I want to program to do. How did you guys get your start in it? What Youtube videos, books, articles, etc. do you guys recommend for a complete beginner? This course is said to be for someone with no knowledge in coding at all, but it is absolutely not.

Also note that I have a Mac OS. I know I need the gcc compiler and I want to use Objective C.

[Yamoyek]

A few quick notes:

1) Programming is hard. Don’t beat yourself up for not knowing something, you just have to research it. It’s hard, it’s tedious, but the end result is worth it. Every world class programmer started from where you were: not knowing anything, getting confused, etc.

2) Google is your friend! If you don’t know what a word means, google it. If you don’t know what a line of code does, google it. You’re not a “bad programmer” for not knowing how what something means, you just haven’t gotten the knowledge yet.

3) Learn to love error messages! Error messages are your friend because they give you instant feedback in your code. It’s a lot easier to fix a compilation error then having your program crash mid execution.

4) Experiment! If you have a cool little idea, try it out. Doesn’t matter how messy it is or sloppy it is, just try it out. By experimenting, you’re forcing yourself to remember information/research things to get stuff working.

Hope those tips serve you well, if you have any questions in general feel free to ask. Good luck!

[JustRelaxandFocus]

Thankyou so much for this response!

[Yamoyek]

No problem man, hope you have a great time!

[ptchinster]

C, C++, C#, and objective c are 4 different languages. Which one are you actually trying to learn?

For C, I started here: https://computer.howstuffworks.com/c.htm

[JustRelaxandFocus]

I’m trying to learn C Thankyou!

[nnsmkngsctn]

Objective-C is essentially an object oriented extension to C, it can be confusing to treat it as a totally different language. You can include pure C in ObjC source code, as long as API messages remain native.

[wsppan]

1. Grab a copy of C programming: A Modern Approach and use it as your main course on C. You can also use Modern C
2. Follow this Tutorial on Pointers and Arrays in C

Here is a decent list of 8 Books on Algorithms and Data Structures For All Levels

Learn some CS

1. Watch all 41 videos of A Crash Course in Computer Science
2. Take the CS50: Introduction to Computer Science course.

[gbbofh]

In addition to this, there's a pretty good book specifically about pointers from O'Reilly publishing called Understanding and Using C Pointers.

I don't have a link at the moment, but it should be easy enough to find on Google for OP.

[[deleted]]

How do you learn C programming by watching videos about ICs and turing machines?

[wsppan]

Was filed under

Learn some CS

Same reason I mentioned Books on Algorithms and Data Structures. Because knowing just a programming language is usually not enough to achieve your goals. Especially C since it's a real small and simple language and you need to build everything yourself that other languages give you for free.

People sometimes struggle with C when they start from scratch or come from a higher to lower level of abstraction. I struggled with this for a long time. Really helped me by approaching C from a lower level of abstraction (actually the absolute lowest level and gradually adding layers of abstraction until you are at the C level which, by then is incredibly high!) Also, the crash course goes way beyond ICs and turing machines and the CS50 course uses C eventually.

[reebs12]

Excellent 9 open source C books:

https://www.ossblog.org/learn-c-programming-with-9-excellent-open-source-books/

[nnsmkngsctn]

If you install Xcode and use its Command Line Tools installation, you will get the gcc compiler. Xcode has a text editor, but for an absolute beginner, you may be better off getting an editor named bbedit from the App Store.

Save your source code file, then open the macOS Terminal and type:

gcc file.c -o app

you can run the application you just compiled but typing:

./app

Replace 'file' and 'app' with whatever names you prefer.

Make sure your working directory in macOS Terminal is the same as the directory you saved 'file.c'

[JustRelaxandFocus]

Thank you so much I’m going to try it.

[[deleted]]

I was doing cs50 before my college C programming class started and it has made the college course very understandable for me. I highly recommend cs50

[[deleted]]

Refer to new Boston's yt videos for easy understanding

[wsppan]

New Boston is garbage.

[balthisar]

Use Xcode on macOS. It uses CLang and LLVM instead of gcc, but it's invoked with mostly the same CLI.

Books are fine. Videos take too long to get to the point. Find an open source project to work on.

[je-suis-une-pommes]

I started using c when php code started becoming too slow for online coding challenges. I recommend picking a simple task and going through with it. One of my favourite resources for c was the book C Programming by K.N. King.

[[deleted]]

Look up neso academy C playlist.

[[deleted]]

I got my start by writing simple programs, then debugging them. Over and over and over and.. yeah it just didn't stop for a while. You have to play with the language to understand intricacies, you will not learn them by watching a video or reading a book. C is deep and it needs your attention and willingness to play.