Book Details

Paperback: 1312 pages
Publisher: Prentice Hall; Fourth edition (January 28, 2004)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0131426443
ISBN-13: 978-0131426443


This book is used in FSU's CGS 3408 course: "Introduction to Programming with the C Language." In the preface, the Deitels state that this book is for everyone (beginners to experts) who want to learn C. They've made a very good stab at that goal, but realistically, I'd have to say that those who are professional programmers in other languages will find this book too long for their needs. For beginners (and even those moderately versed in other languages), this is an excellent book. I really have only three minor gripes about it:

- First, throughout the C portion, the book uses scanf as the default for getting user input. Unfortunately, as my compiler warned me constantly (and I verified on the web), scanf has been "deprecated" (I guess that's a fancy way to say don't use it, use something else). Unfortunately, the book talks about alternative IO in only one chapter near the end of the C portion and very rarely uses it. So, this book teaches as a standard an input method that's been superseded.

- Second, and related to the first, the book clumps all IO except for printf and scanf into a single chapter near the end. It would have been a lot better if they had introduced alternative IO a little at a time throughout the book. As it is, my eyes just glazed over when I hit that chapter.

- And, finally, though this might sound weird, there are too many exercises at the end of each chapter. I read through this book on my own and so had no way of choosing which exercises to do. Some of the chapters have over 40 programming exercises. I suppose this is great at a college where the instructors can select different exercises for years without repeating. But, as an individual, I'd have preferred a handful of in-depth exercises focusing on the chapter material instead of a huge number of varied exercises (some of which don't seem to have much bearing on the chapter).

One note about the content of this book: most of it (over half) is dedicated to C. It covers C in detail. The remaining half is equally divided between C++ and Java. The level of detail in those chapters (and the exercises, too) comes nowhere near that in the C portion. If you're interested in C++ or Java, those chunks in this book are good, but you'll really need to read dedicated books to get the full treatment.

Overall, a very good book. Experienced programmers might prefer something more terse, but all others will be pleased. I give it 4 stars out of 5.



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