How to learn C and Objective-C [closed]

Question

I am learning programming. I plan on learning C and Objective-C this summer. I bought the C for Dummies book but it is a complete waste of time. It's way too many pages! Are there any good books I should read? Or should I just learn C from websites? What would be the fastest way because I really want to learn it fast and start learning Objective-C too.

Thank you

Also, how long does it take to learn C? Until I move to Objective-C 2.0

Answer 1

There's no need to rush. Learn at your own pace and find your optimal way of learning.

If reading is your thing, then try to read some books and take it slowly.

If you find a concept you grasp, practice. If you find a concept that you don't quite get, experiment. Once you think you understand the concept, try re-reading the material to see if you understand it the second time.

I found out that I wasn't really good at learning though books -- I generally had to get the first kick-start with a structured lessons in a classroom. A semester course at a community college on Java was able to nudge in the direction of being able to begin effectively learning on my own. See if there are any programming courses offered in your school.

(Although at your age it may be a little bit difficult to find -- I didn't get any formal classes until community college -- my high school did not offer any programming courses.)

One of the things to be careful of is learning it the wrong way.

Rushing through material, or reading poorly written, inaccurate learning material can lead to a situation where you'll need to "un-learn" the concepts and re-learn it the right way.

In that respect, the K&R book (The C Programming Language by Kernighan and Ritchie) would be the "right way" of learning, but it's not a very approachable book. That isn't to say that it is the definitive book on C -- but even after programming in C for a couple years, I still try to take read it a bite-size at a time.

But then again, I can't really think of other "great" sources for learning C. My recommendation would be to take a look at K&R and work on a few pages at a time. Don't think about reading it like a regular book -- read one section, try it out. Do it little-by-little. Once again, don't rush. Work at your own speed.

And be sure to write code. Without seeing it working, it's going to be difficult to learn programming. And don't have huge expectations at first, as most of learning C at the beginning will involve programs that deal with only text.

Once you get a handle of things, try to write clean code that is readable by others -- that should be a motivation to write clean and clear code, and it will force you to think harder about what you're doing.

It's going to be a long adventure, so take it a step at a time. Good luck!