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INFSCI 0012 is designed to teach programming for the complete beginners (or for those who have problems with regular programming courses). Selecting proper books to support a "gentle introduction" into programming is one of the keys to sucess. This page lists your course books and some supplementary books that may be helpful for your to master the subject. You should be able to get both required books in the University Book Center. Both required books and two supplemantary books (Gookin and Deitel & Deitel) have also been reserved for you in the Information Sciences Library. You can locate the reserved books through Course Reserves.
We need two books for this course. One is for Karel The Robot programming environment that we will use as a tool to learn the basic principles of programming. Another is for learning C that will be the main content of the course. For this course I am recomminding a rather unusual book of Greg Perry that was written not for college students, but for the "home reader" market. This kind of books are simply cheaper and provide a good value for those without programming experience. This book was found very usuful by a number of our students who were starting almost from scratch.
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Karel The
Robot: A Gentle Introduction to the Art of Programming, 2nd Edition
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Absolute
Beginner's Guide to C
by Greg M. Perry 2nd edition Buy / read about this book at amazon.com ($15.40 new, $13 used) |
This section is for those who want to consider another C book or an extra C book. The instructor of this course have reviewed about a dozen of popular books on C and also have collected recommendations of students who took S12 and IS15 courses in the past. Here are some additional books that I can recommend most. Pick one that better fits your style or simply one that you have around (i.e., can borrow or buy used). Examine readers' feedback for these books on Amazon.com when making a decision. Note also that some of them could be available for less than half of its price on an auction.
The first book by Kernighan and Ritchie is considered as a "bible" of C programmers. It's a definite reference book on C, but it is has almost no explanations that are important for novices. You can find it in the library, but it was not reserved for IS0012.
The second book is another example of a book from the "home reader" market. It's bigger than Perry's book and could be a good "second source". It is reserved for our course in the library.
The rest of the books in this list are among the best college textbooks on C. College textbooks are specially written with college students in mind, but they tend to be expensive. They have been used in the past in conjunction with other courses at our department and other departments at Pitt, so you have a good chance to get a used copy from your fellow students. Most of them can be found in Pitt library. Any of these books can serve for IS12 and later for IS15. However, our students have found that they are less suitable for complete beginners than Perry's and Gookin's books. Note that among these books "C How to Program" by Harvey and Paul Deitel (last in the list) was the most popular supplementary book among students of both IS12 and IS15. It is reserved for you in the Information Sciences Library. Note that in addition to these books, the KnowledgeSea tool (see Course Tools section) that we use for the course provides structured access to several free Web-based books and tutorials on C language. Check this source before deciding to buy yet another book.
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The C Programming
Language, 2nd edition1 Read
publisher's description of the book 1It's important that you get the second edition because it presents the ANSI standard version of C. The second edition of the book is commonly referred as K&R2 |
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C
for Dummies Dan Gookin IDG Books Worldwide,
800 pp. |
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A
Book on C: Programming in C
Al Kelley and Ira Pohl 4th Edition (earlier editions will also work) Addison-Wesley1998, 752 pp. ISBN 0-201-18399-4 Read
publisher's description of the book |
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ANSI
C: Problem Solving and Programming Kenneth Barclay Prentice Hall, 1991, 500 pp. ISBN 0-13-037326-5 Read
publisher's description of the book |
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Programming
in ANSI C Stephen G. Kochan Sams, 1994,
534 pp. |
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C
How to Program Harvey Deitel, Paul Deitel 3rd Edition (earlier editions will also work) Prentice Hall, 2000, 1253 pp. ISBN: 0130895725 Read
publisher's description of the book |