jonadab:

WRT K&R: I find that odd. I've got the first version, and always recommend it to my friends when asked how to learn C. I went through it and did all the examples, and felt I had really learned C.

I'm always amused at the 'fat books' in the bookstores, and keep wishing for books on other languages that resemble the original K&R. (Of course, another thing that amuses me is that I find Perl *much harder* than C. I understand the rules in C, but am frequently surprised by things in Perl--I find myself much more in the "cut and try" mode when programming.)

Of course, it's one of those "diff'rent strokes" sorta deals. Different people need things explained in different ways to get the best effect.

Now, to keep my response somewhat "on topic", here's my list o' books:

  • "The C Programming Language" Kernighan & Ritchie, 1978. Terse, concise, recommended
  • "Data Structures and Algorithms" Aho, Hopcroft & Ullman, 1983. A nice survey of the fundamentals
  • "Computer Graphics, A programming approach" Harrington, 1983. Not a great book, but I like it. Nice refresher of stuff you should already know, if you do graphics programming.
  • "An Introduction to Data Structures with Applications" Tremblay & Sorenson, 1976.Uh, I used this in my classes. Amusing, but I wouldn't buy it again if I lost it.
  • "Computer Approaches to Mathematical Problems" Nievergelt, Farrar, Reingold, 1974. This is the second computer book I got, and the one I learned the most from. I don't know if it's a good one or not, but I didn't have much choice back then!
  • The dragon book (A compiler design book), ?Aho, Hopcroft? 19xx, This one is still on loan to a friend (Hey, Tim! 10 years is long enough, bring it back!) and is very good for compiler internals.

    --roboticus

    In reply to Re^2: YAC (Yet Another Challenge): Oldest Useful Computer Text by roboticus
    in thread YAC (Yet Another Challenge): Oldest Useful Computer Text by hsmyers

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