This book is a tutorial for the computer programming language C. Unlike
BASIC or Pascal, C was not written as a teaching aid, but as a
professional tool. Programmers love C! Moreover, C is a standard,
widely-used language, and a single C program can often be made to run on
many different kinds of computer. As Richard M. Stallman remarks in
GNU Coding Standards, "Using another language is like using a
non-standard feature: it will cause trouble for users." (See
https://www.gnu.org/prep/standards_toc.html.)
Skeptics have said that everything that can go wrong in C, does. True,
it can be unforgiving, and holds some difficulties that are not obvious at
first, but that is because it does not withhold its powerful
capabilities from the beginner. If you have come to C seeking a powerful
language for writing everyday computer programs, you will not be
disappointed.
To get the most from this book, you should have some basic computer
literacy -- you should be able to run a program, edit a text file, and
so on. You should also have access to a computer running a GNU system
such as GNU/Linux. (For more information on GNU and the philosophy of
free software, see https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/.)
The tutorial introduces basic ideas in a logical order and progresses
steadily. You do not need to follow the order of the chapters
rigorously, but if you are a beginner to C, it is recommended that you
do. Later, you can return to this book and copy C code from it;
the many examples range from tiny programs that illustrate the use of
one simple feature, to complete applications that fill several pages.
Along the way, there are also brief discussions of the philosophy behind
C.
Computer languages have been around so long that some jargon has
developed. You should not ignore this jargon entirely, because it is
the language that programmers speak. Jargon is explained wherever
necessary, but kept to a minimum. There is also a glossary at the back
of the book.
The authors of this book hope you will learn everything you need to
write simple C programs from this book. Further, it is released under
the GNU Free Documentation License, so as the computers and robots in
the fantasies of Douglas Adams say, "Share and Enjoy!"
The first edition of this book was written in 1987, then updated
and rewritten in 1999. It was originally published by Dabs Press.
After it went out of print, David Atherton of Dabs and the original
author, Mark Burgess, agreed to release the manuscript. At the request
of the Free Software Foundation, the book was further revised by Ron
Hale-Evans in 2001 and 2002.
The current edition is written in Texinfo, which is a
documentation system using a single source file to produce both online
information and printed output. You can read this tutorial online with
either the Emacs Info reader, the stand-alone Info reader, or a World
Wide Web browser, or you can read it as a printed book.
