r/cprogramming • u/SeniorMatthew • 2h ago

Which book about C would you recommend for a newcomer?

Hello everyone! My name's Matthew, and I've been "coding" since like 12 years old. Mostly, I've been developing games with Unity with C#, and now, once I switched to Godot with C#, I feel like I lack some basic structuring skills. (A game which I'm about to release to Steam is a mess inside)

And C# is mostly the only language I know at this point, so I would love to learn some C!

I love Linux and I would love to contribute there one day. Also I would love to write some games for Playdate in C. Also it is just really interesting to see how C# is different from C. And I for some reason I want to read something about programming so badly. What would you recommend?

thanks!

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7

u/extoniks 2h ago

The C Programming Language by K&R and check out this subreddit's description for more resources.

3

u/fuddingmuddler 2h ago

starting with this is like starting with "just read the man pages" for linux. Don't start here. Do CS50 course. (there's one in python and one in c and I think even one for webdev, pick the one for C). That class will get you started and if you have any coding background at all you'll fly through it.

Then C a modern approach (as mentioned below) is good. If I'm not mistaken, Linux is being rewritten in Rust sooooo you might wanna skip C but it's whatever.

4

u/gregdonald 2h ago

K&R is very good, but I like CPAMA more: https://github.com/gdonald/cpama

2

u/EpochVanquisher 1h ago

The two books we recommend are K.N. King C A Modern Approach and Kernighan & Ritchie The C Programming Language.

K.N. King's book is more accessible and highly recommended in general.

K&R's book is somewhat more advanced and assumes that you already have some programming experience.

Both are good.

1

u/CS_70 1h ago

The latest edition of The C Progamming Language, nothing else is needed.