C Programming for Everybody (CC4E)

Hello and welcome to my site where you learn computer architecture and the history of computing by studying C.

1: K&R 0: Historical Context

We read the introduction of the book and place the moment this book was published (1978) in the context of the history of computer hardware, operating systems, and programming languages. We explore why C (and UNIX) had such a transformative effect on computing when this book introduced them to a mainstream audience.

2: From Python to C

To quickly get up to speed with C, we translate some Python code to C and compare and contrast the two languages to prepare you for Chapter 1 of the book. This course assumes you know at least Python and hopefully passing understanding of JavaScript and maybe even PHP, so the overall C syntax should not be 100% new to you.

3: K&R 1: A Tutorial Introduction

This chapter covers what might be called the conventional core of C.

4: K&R 2: Types, Operators, and Expressions

This chapter covers types, operators, and expressions.

5: K&R 3: Control Flow

This chapter covers control flow.

6: K&R 4: Functions and Program Structure

This chapter covers functions and program structure.

7: K&R 5: Pointers and Arrays

This chapter covers pointers and arrays.

8: K&R 6: Structures

This chapter covers structures. This lesson does n0t cover all of the detail in the chapter, preferring instead to focus on the concepts needed to build a singly linked list in C. Later modules go into details for doubly linked lists, binary trees, and hash tables.

9: Object Oriented Programming

We look at the underpinnings of C-based languages that supported the Object Oriented Pattern and expore how these languages used C as their foundation. We look at how these languages improved on aspects of C that make C less than ideal as a general purpose language.

10: Encapsulation and Abstraction

In this section, we improve our object implementation through encapsulation and abstraction.

11: Tree Maps and Hash Maps

In this section, we implement a hashmap and a linked tree map.

12: Epilogue

In this section, we look back at the object implementations we built in Chapter 6 and wonder if Guido van Rossum used a similar approach when he built the object implementation in Python 0.0.9. We go and visit Guido and learn a lot about the approach he used when designing the object oriented aproach in Python as well as the actual implementations of string, list, and dictionary. There are a few plot twists along the way :).

13: K&R 7: Input / Output

This chapter covers input / output features of C.

14: K&R 8: The UNIX System Interface

This chapter covers input / output features of C.