[ale] starting programming

[No one in particular]

Tri,

Very good question, and one that I was asking in the not too distant
past.  Here's my experience, and I hope it helps you.

I had been programming in other languages for some time, but decided I
needed to modernize my language set.  I looked at C, C++, and Java, and
eventually decided on C++.  I reckoned that OOP was the wave of the
future, and Java just wasn't quite "there" yet, in the sense of having
all the kinks worked out.  Thus I began teaching myself C++.

I failed miserably.

I did not find one book that was both high quality and did not assume
prior experience with C.  The closest I found was _Pracical C++
Programming,_ an O'Reilly book, and it remains the only O'Reilly text
with which I have been unsatisfied.  I lost count of the number of times
I fell asleep reading that book.  Other people--including the guy I
borrowed it from--had similar experiences.  However, if you have zero
prior programming experience, this might be the book for you.

Because of the general assumption of prior C experience in most books,
and the fact that I run into far, far more C source than C++, I then
elected to turn to C.  I polled professional C proprammers, CS majors at
GaTech, etc. and the consensus was that the best book for learning C is
The Waite Group's _C Primer Plus,_ currently in its third edition.  The
book is solid and thorough, neither oversimplified or unreadably dense.
Most people I spoke to found K&R's book a bit dated and rather dense.
I'll go ahead and point out that no matter what book you buy to learn,
you will very quickly have use for Stevens's _Advanced Programming in
the UNIX Environment,_ and will continue to use it as long as you
program under Unix.

Hope this helps--you've had a lot of different opinions thrown at you
very quickly:)

bye----
wes