Expert: John OConnor - 3/27/2010

Question
Sir,

I wish to learn C programming. Right now I have no idea about programming, how would you suggest I go about this study. Is there anything I should learn before learn programming?? The internet is my source for studying. So please suggest any website from where I can study. Thank you for your time and knowledge.

- Vinod.

Answer
Hello Vinod,

Programming is a very rewarding hobby (and can turn into a valuable career skill). However, like anything else, learning to become a good programming takes a great deal of practice.

You can get the basics of learning to program in C or C++ from the website http://www.cprogramming.com  However, knowing where the information is, and even reading through a few tutorials, will not teach you how to be a C programmer.  What you need is practice.

Therefore, I usually suggest the following:  Use the website to teach you the basics of the language.  Then, do as many programming exercises as you can.  You can find them online by searching for "C programming exercises for beginners".  http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/C_Programming/Beginning_exercises has some excellent ones.

In my opinion, there is no website worth the money of a good book.  The book I highly recommend is http://www.horstmann.com/bigcpp/bigcpp1.html -- in particular, "Computing Concepts with C++ essentials", third edition.  It has many exercises to get you started programming in C++ (which is similar to C), and gets into fun things like graphics very early, so you can do some cool programs almost right away.

While the Internet has excellent resources, there's no substitute for a good book.  I've used the book above to teach C++ programming to dozens of people, and all of them found it easy follow and understand.

Best of luck!