Author Intro

C was the first programming language i truly loved! i had taught myself BASIC and Z80 assembly, and later i learned Pascal and VAX assembly for college. i liked VAX assembly. it was at my internship that i was handed The C Programming Language K&R that i realized how much i could love a language. i also learned FORTRAN 77 at that internship. i do NOT like FORTRAN.

C has a simplicity about it that makes it easy to jump into. it has a rawness that lets you really control what is happening in your program and consequently shoot yourself in the foot. the really great thing about C is that it gives you visibility into what really happens when your code executes that is only surpassed by assembly but without the verbosity and awkward constructs of working with assembly.

this booklet is to be experimented with. if you want a book to read, these are not the droids you are looking for. if you want something to introduce you to key concepts of C with some pointers for experiments you can try yourself, read on and write some code! programming is learned by writing code; there is just no other way that comes close to it. not everyone starts out as a great programmer, but everyone can become one by writing code either from scratch or by modifying code of others.

i hope this booklet will be something that can help you learn to love the challenge/satisfaction/power/rewards that come with being a great programmer.

ben

ps - you may guess after reading the booklet that i really loved the 80s. you can listen to the music references in the text at the sounds of c4c++ youtube playlist