the K&R book is a really good starting point, and if you can do most of the hard programming exercises, you're already reasonably good. if you're looking to ve

the K&R book is a really good starting point, and if you can do most of the hard programming exercises, you're already reasonably good. if you're looking to venture out, and want to deal with networking, then an IM client may actually be quite good to work with. you'll want to look at sockets in UNIX (although windows sockets are very similar, if that's your sort of thing), and use that as a starting point for communications. it depends exactly what you want to get out of programming though. do you want to stick with C and the low level stuff? making tools/programs from scratch is very rewarding, and imparts a very complete understanding of the subject matter. i didn't feel like i was a "real" programmer until i started making GUI (so, qt/cocoa/.net) applications, at which point i realised i could really do pretty much whatever i wanted (and have since realised that such a standard for being a "real" programmer was rubbish). most of the programs you'll make will rely heavily on libraries, or external tools, which you might not have access to. so i recommend, whatever it is you do, that you include something you didn't create. aside from that, i don't really have much to suggest, other than keep going, keep pushing yourself, and keep learning. good luck.