[Gllug] Newbie asks: how to learn?

[Tethys]

chris.wareham at btopenworld.com writes:

>For Unix programming, first get reasonably proficient in C - I don't
>know any good tutorial books on C, as I learnt it the painfull way from
>Kernighan and Ritchie's "The C Programming Language". It's a little
>terse for a first time programmer. I certainly wish I'd had a slightly
>more hand-holding book to learn C from.

Just to add an opposing point of view, I'd highly recommend K&R as
possibly the *best* book from which to learn C. Yes, it's terse,
but that's because it doesn't need to be wordy, and doesn't benefit
from verbosity. Obviously, YMMV.

>Once your past the basic C stage, W. Richard Stevens wrote the bible of
>Unix programming:

Seconded. If you want a slightly less pricey option, then try "Unix
Systems Programming for SVR4" or it's predecessor "Using C on the
Unix System", both published by O'Reilly (and sadly both now out of
print). But Stevens is really the one to go for.

>Writing in assembly is slow and tedious, but a basic understanding
>should allow you to optimise your higher level code better.

Agreed 100%. I haven't written assembly language in anger[1] for
over 15 years now, but I'm thankful every time I have to program in
a higher level language that I can do so.

>No one likes x86 assembler, so it might be worth just learning the
>theory from a book on a nicer processor. Books on Motorola's 68k
>assembler are available secondhand in large quantities, as it seemed
>to be the processor of choice for University computer courses.

For learning the general theory of assembly language, you'll do well
to find a better book than "Beyond Basic", decsribing 6502 on the BBC
Micro. Yes, it's an obsolete processor, but the principles haven't
changed. You can even test your programs out on one of the many Beeb
emulators :-)

Tet

[1] Oddly enough, that's starting to change, as I head towards lower
    level code (I'm messing around with boot loaders for DG/UX). I'm
    delving into x86 for the first time, having only really worked
    with "clean" processors before, and man does it suck!

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