Starting to program need some help

colin300

I have teach yourself C in 21 days from Sams. I bought it a year or two ago but then the Leaving Cert and studying got in the way so i am going to try and learn C before college as that is what i want to do.

So a couple of quick questions:

1. What is the best compiler? It did come with DJGPP but it seems a bit hard to understand in my eyes.

2. I know the book says 21 days but roughly how long could it take for me to learn it?

3. Is there anything else i am missing before i start programming? (Program wise need to link it or anything?)


Cheers for any help.

MrPinK

colin300 wrote:

3. Is there anything else i am missing before i start programming? (Program wise need to link it or anything?)

Not an essential, but a good text editor with syntax highlighting can really help, without the hand-holding you get from an IDE. I'd recommend Editplus

PhantomBeaker

1. DJGPP is a dos port of the GNU compiler collection, so it's pretty heavy stuff. Hell, most unix people hardly use a compiler directly - they use shiny things like makefiles, unless it's a really small program. However, seeing as it's GNU,there's going to be LOADS of (terse) documentation. If the book handles using djgpp, I suggest stick with it.

2. To learn the basics - probably 21 days if you tackled a section a day. To learn the rest - like any good (or alive) programming language: you never stop learning.

3. to link - I think djgpp also has that stuff in there as well. Anything else I can think of... other than a good supply of spare sanity? Not really.

colin300

Ye the book doesn't say use DJGPP so since it is and looks very heavy can u recommend another?

rsynnott

I'm guessing you're not on Linux, Mac or anything else unixy. If you are, use GCC. (gcc -o <output file> <input-file>)

On windows, still use gcc . You can get gcc for windows, along with other UNIX-y tools, from http://cygwin.com and http://mingw.org at least. Or Microsoft have a free version of their compiler available, if you prefer.

colin300

Thanks that MiniGW one looks pretty easy to use nothing to complicated.


Another quick question I know i just started so it wount be for a while but just say I want to create a dart scoring program. What language would that be in. I would just want it to subtract everytime i input a score and maybe keep a few stats. Then when a checkout is available to tell me. The visual side of the app what would that be in. Nothing to brilliant just plain.

rsynnott

Visual? There's lots of graphical toolkits around... GTK for Windows (http://www.gimp.org/~tml/gimp/win32/) is an easy one, and Microsoft's MFC is okay, if you're using C++. I'm sure other people can suggest more.

Cake Fiend

Check this baby out. Nice, free IDE based around the Minigw port of gcc.

Zaph0d

Most computer books are badly written and padded out into huge volumes. 'The C Programming Language' is the classic book about C and it's less than 200 pages long. I found it very clear. The authors (Kernighan and Ritchie) also wrote the C language so there is no rubbish.

Oriel

Make sure you understand the basic theories (languauge indepentant) behind programming before you jump straight in and start coding anything.

scojones

http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/cbook/ <== Great book, I definately recommend you buy it. Checkout micromail.ie I think they have it...


Get an IRC client and go on irc.efnet.net #c (the key to the channel is 'c' without the '')... This bunch really know their stuff, and they will help you out with links to great books and tutorials on c.

Kudos for doing this before you start college btw. I knew C before I started college, and even though college didn't teach me C ( I didn't need it anyway!! ) I found everything programming related really really easy. I'm on my way to doing my masters now. Good on ya