Learn C on the Mac
Learn C on The Mac by Dave Mark
Publisher: Apress
RRP: $39.99 (Available in PDF for $27.99)
Table of Contents
Sample Chapter
A Review By Scotty
This book is for inexperience programmers or people who have never programmed before looking to start programming on the Mac. I have been a programmer to long to really be able to know how well it will reach this audience but as an experienced programmer who has read many crappy books in his time I do know this is a great book by a man who knows how to explain things very well.
Whenever I pick a book up on C I immediately turn to the chapter on pointers. I work on the (probably over simplistic) basis that if someone can explain and demonstrate pointers in a clear coherent manner then they can probably teach you anything. Remembering that this book is for new programmers, Mark starts nice and simply building up a very clear example of how you might visualize pointers in a similar way to a libraries book referencing system where if you have the book reference you can quickly find the book. You don’t have the book but you can get to it. It really works. This method of explaining programing paradigms through real world references is used throughout the book and I think works really well.
This books takes its time to explain basic programming fundamentals while teaching you the C language in nice understandable chunks. If you have very little programming experience or are moving into programming from Applescript or something like PHP you will find the book well paced. If you are looking to move to C from another 3rd generation language such as Pascal you may find the book a little slow as a takes time to explain programming principles you will already know although the book is structured well enough that it’s easy to skip the stuff you already know.
Although the book never strays from standard C the “on the Mac” part of the title is thoroughly fulfilled in the form of using Xcode throughout. Here again the book works well for it’s target audience by walking the reader through the process of obtaining and installing the Apple developer tools. All of the example code (which can be downloaded from the Apress website) is supplied as Xcode projects. The examples are integral to the book rather than just being side projects. In many places the book walks through the examples line by line ensuring and reinforcing the readers understanding. When it does this the book contains the example code in the print as well so you can continue to learn even when away from your machine.
With most of the current crop of “Learn to program for the Mac” books assuming their readers already know C this book becomes a natural starting place to gain that experience. Even though when reading it I never learnt anything I didn’t already know I was never bored and really enjoyed reading it. In a world where the quality of programing books has been dropping, Apress and Mark should be congratulated for producing something of quality. Highly Recommended.
I bought the e-book version of Learn C on the Mac because, although I have a fairly good grasp of Objective-C I’ve never written any C code before so it seemed like a good idea to go back to basics and make sure that I had the foundations laid properly. I essentially skimmed through the book because, as I was expecting, there was a fair amount I already knew, but I did actually learnt a fair bit from the book and picked up some useful snippets of information that had passed me by. I like Dave’s writing style and enjoyed his book about iPhone development which he co-wrote with Jeff LaMarche (and I’m looking forward to their forthcoming Cocoa book) and this is a very readable book considering the subject matter (or maybe I’m just more of a geek than I realise).
Like Scotty I give this a thumbs up.
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