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Hello,
Pardon me if this is out of topic. I can program in C but looks
like I'm not very good at it. I think I need more experience. What
should I do ? Is there any "exercise collection" I can use to get some
experience ? I dont know advanced programming concepts ( like hash
table etc., ). What should I do to be able to write "real" programs.[I
suppose many of you are university students, but I just learned C from
a book - so I hope you understand my problem]

BTW is there an IRC channel for standard C programming ?

Thankyou

oracleofdelphi <> wrote:
: Hello,
: Pardon me if this is out of topic. I can program in C but looks
: like I'm not very good at it.

You know, you are not unique; many, if not all, of the people who give
answers in this group, could probably have written what you wrote at
some time in their lives.


: I think I need more experience. What
: should I do ?

Keep on trying to write programs which you find interesting.


: Is there any "exercise collection" I can use to get some
: experience ?

The first thing which comes to mind is the Exercises in K&R2 (see
the FAQ for c.l.c, especially questions 18.10 and 18.11).

Speaking of the FAQ, you could go through that and try the various
snippets of code. For example, write a function using fgets() and
sscanf() to get input from a user. Then write a complete program which
uses this function.


: I dont know advanced programming concepts ( like hash
: table etc., ).

This is not necessary to begin with.

What should I do to be able to write "real" programs.[I
: suppose many of you are university students, but I just learned C from
: a book - so I hope you understand my problem]

Pick a problem in which you are interested, and write a program which
helps you solve that problem. You have to use some discernment here.
For example, don't try writing code to figure out the human genome.
Being able to calculate how much money you spend on food or gasoline
(if applicable) per month would be enough for a starter project.

: BTW is there an IRC channel for standard C programming ?

I don't know.

Paul
--
Paul D. Boyle

North Carolina State University
http://www.xray.ncsu.edu

What I'd advise you is to join in the development of one of the projects on
SourceForge.net. It's true most people are looking for experienced programmers,
but personally, I don't mind having an inexperienced programmer on board if
he's willing to learn

I have two pre-alpha projects on SourceForge (DNAse and jail-ust) of which one
(jail-ust) is about to start development on the preprocessor. Feel free to
join me (I am currently the only developer on jail-ust, but I expect the guy
I've been talking with to define the language might want to do some
implementing as well).

Note, though, that I used to teach C and I expect very proper, very portable
code - which may be a bit of a pain in the B-hind to some

rlc

In article < >, oracleofdelphi wrote:
> Hello,
> Pardon me if this is out of topic. I can program in C but looks
> like I'm not very good at it. I think I need more experience. What
> should I do ? Is there any "exercise collection" I can use to get some
> experience ? I dont know advanced programming concepts ( like hash
> table etc., ). What should I do to be able to write "real" programs.[I
> suppose many of you are university students, but I just learned C from
> a book - so I hope you understand my problem]
>
> BTW is there an IRC channel for standard C programming ?
>
> Thankyou


--
Jail: Just Another Interpreted Language
Just: Jail Uses Silly Terms

Join the discussion on the definition of this language at
jail-ust- http://jail-ust.sourceforge.net
(send mail to jail-ust-lang-)

In < > (oracleofdelphi) writes:

> Pardon me if this is out of topic. I can program in C but looks
>like I'm not very good at it. I think I need more experience. What
>should I do ? Is there any "exercise collection" I can use to get some
>experience ? I dont know advanced programming concepts ( like hash
>table etc., ). What should I do to be able to write "real" programs.[I
>suppose many of you are university students, but I just learned C from
>a book - so I hope you understand my problem]

By the time you have solved all the exercises in K&R2, you're quite
ready for writing "real" C programs. They don't require any more
background than the book actually provides.

Dan
--
Dan Pop
DESY Zeuthen, RZ group
Email:

"oracleofdelphi" <> wrote in message
news: om...
> Hello,
> Pardon me if this is out of topic. I can program in C but looks
> like I'm not very good at it. I think I need more experience. What
> should I do ? Is there any "exercise collection" I can use to get some
> experience ? I dont know advanced programming concepts ( like hash
> table etc., ). What should I do to be able to write "real" programs.[I
> suppose many of you are university students, but I just learned C from
> a book - so I hope you understand my problem]
>

Visit the following URI: http://www.norvig.com/21-days.html

> BTW is there an IRC channel for standard C programming ?
>

Sure. irc.freenode.net channel #C
I should note though, while many implementation specific things are also
discussed there, ISO C is discussed as well.

> Thankyou

> > Pardon me if this is out of topic. I can program in C but looks
> >like I'm not very good at it. I think I need more experience. What
> >should I do ? Is there any "exercise collection" I can use to get some
> >experience ? I dont know advanced programming concepts ( like hash
> >table etc., ). What should I do to be able to write "real" programs.[I
> >suppose many of you are university students, but I just learned C from
> >a book - so I hope you understand my problem]
>
> By the time you have solved all the exercises in K&R2, you're quite
> ready for writing "real" C programs. They don't require any more
> background than the book actually provides.

I agree. Also if you have finished K&R2, a way to get more experience in C
programming and to learn some more about programming in general could be the
following: Read about algorithms and datastructures and implement them in C
as excercises. A good book on this topic is Algorithms in C, from Robert
Sedgewick. An other good book on this is Datastructures and Program Design
in C, from Robert Kruse and others. And ofcourse there are also lots of
online resources on this topic.

Regards,
Nathan

(oracleofdelphi) writes:

> Hello,
> Pardon me if this is out of topic. I can program in C but looks
> like I'm not very good at it. I think I need more experience. What
> should I do ? Is there any "exercise collection" I can use to get some
> experience ? I dont know advanced programming concepts ( like hash
> table etc., ). What should I do to be able to write "real" programs.[I
> suppose many of you are university students, but I just learned C from
> a book - so I hope you understand my problem]

I suppose you came to this conclusion by reading this newsgroup?
The very first thing I would recommend is: keep doing so. It has
been one of the single most helpful things to my C programming
expertise.

And don't feel bad about having learned C form a book: I suspect
that many of the experts on this NG also did not learn from a
classroom. It is my belief that you are likely to fare far better
by teaching yourself from a good book, then to get it through
middle-men, a depressingly large percentage of which seem to be
less-than-competent anyway. BTW, from what book did you teach
yourself? There are a very large number of poor C books, and even
many of the very good ones have problems. My recommendations
would be:

1. K&R2 (The C Programming Language, 2nd ed., by Kernighan and
Ritchie)
2. Algorithms in C, Robert Sedgewick
3. Writing Solid Code, Steve Maguire, Microsoft Press

For 2. and 3., focus more on the concepts than on the actual
code. Ben Pfaff has pointed out some problems with the code in
(3.), but the volume still stands out to me as having terrific
principles for writing very excellent code.

But you can't learn everything from books. Experience in finding
good design and coding practices comes from actually encountering
them (and in encountering the bad ones, too). Reading this NG
helps. Reading a lot of code does too: but keep in mind that most
code is filled with examples of what not to do; even some of the
best code I've seen tends to have poor ideas about certain
things. So read a *lot* of code, and compare them against
eachother.

HTH,
-Micah

Thanks for the advice (and encouragement!). So looks like I'm off to coding again
[BTW I learned from K&R2: although I couldnt solve all the exercises.]