i believe the books you are refering to are these:

B. Gottfried, Programming with C, second edition,
(Schaum's series), McGraw-Hill, 1996. 

Brian W. Kernighan, Dennis M. Ritchie, The C
Programming Language, Prentice-Hall Inc., , Englewood
Cliffs, New Jersey, 1988.


--- Rakhesh Sasidharan <rakhesh@cse.iitd.ernet.in>
wrote:
> On Sun, 28 Jan 2001, Richard Rauch wrote:
> 
> > A very relavent question is: What sort of a
> beginner are you?
> 
> [snip]
> 
> > When I learned C, I had some background, albeit in
> (don't tell anybody)
> > BASIC.  Some BASIC's, including one of the BASIC's
> that I knew, have
> > reasonably nice structure to them.  I found the
> transition to C to be
> > straightforward, using ``K&R'' (Kernighan &
> Ritchie's _The C Programming
> > Language_).  In addition to being (for me) an
> excellent tutorial in C, the
> > book became an invaluable reference: Short,
> concise, and even with ANSI C
> > still nearly authoritative.
> 
> True.  K&R's book is thoroughly wonderful.  But,
> like Rauch said, quite
> unforgiving.  My only experience in programming was
> a bit of Pascal,
> before I read this book.  I managed to pull through
> a few chapters (boy,
> it was dreadful then!), and then finally left it.  I
> even had the
> impression that C was a language that could never be
> learnt.
> 
> But then somebody recommened a book by this person
> called Gottfried.  I
> don't remember the name, but it was a part of the
> "Schaum series", and
> like most books of that series, this too was quite
> nice.  It had a much
> more beginner oriented approach, and that was how I
> learnt my initial C
> programming.
> 
> BUT, after I climbed over the initial bit, and got
> somewhat comfy with C,
> I happend to re-visit K&R -- and boy! did I LOVE
> that book. :-)  It's
> still a mystery to me as to why I couldn't digest
> that book the first
> time. :)  Still, you might be a stronger person, and
> so you could try K&R
> first; but just remember that if you find it hard,
> it's OK -- many more
> have felt the same before you. :)
> 
> > Other languages that you might find easier to
> learn, if you are new to
> > programming, include Scheme (we have a nice
> DrScheme package that I like
> > and can recommend) or Python (also available as a
> NetBSD package).  
> > Scheme (or LISP in general) is nice in part
> because it has a much simpler
> > syntax, letting you get on with the process of
> learning how to solve
> > problems with a computer (it has general appeal as
> one gets to know it,
> > too).  Python is just a really nice language.  (^&
> 
> Oh, Scheme (or LISP) is a wonderful language.  No,
> not just wonderful, but
> beautiful, rather.  The only thing I found didn't
> like abt Scheme was it's
> loads of brackets; else it is *the* best.
> 
> Python has been known to be a very good beginners
> language.  Although, I
> wouldn't be able to comment much on that.  It is a
> very nice language, and
> even Guido's (the guy who made Python) tutorial is
> nice.  Actually,
> Python->C would be an easier transition than
> Scheme->C, as Scheme follows
> a totally different style of programming than
> C/Python.  (And more than
> that, once you learn Scheme, you might just find C
> programming a
> bore/below-class. :)
> 
> > Good luck, in any case.  And have fun.  (^&
> 
> Yup!
> 
> Regards.
> 
> __
> Rakhesh Sasidharan	rakhesh@cse.iitd.ac.in
> 
> 


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