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Thank you. I will definitely have a look at that book. This is what I have on my list so far: The C Programming Language C Interfaces and Implementations: Te

Thank you. I will definitely have a look at that book. This is what I have on my list so far: The C Programming Language C Interfaces and Implementations: Techniques for Creating Reusable Software Expert C Programming Algorithms in C, Parts 1-5 (Bundle): Fundamentals, Data Structures, Sorting, Searching, and Graph Algorithms Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs Introduction to Algorithms Compilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools Hacker's Delight Cracking the Coding Interview: 150 Programming Questions and Solutions Advanced Programming in the UNIX Environment

crpatino 13y ago
I am familiar with maybe half of the books you mention, and the selection seems quite solid. I would however recommend to spend less time reading and more time hacking. Also, try to approach this as a series of steps, not everything in one go: 1. Learn C, the Language: You should already know the basic components of structured programming (functions, loops, conditionals, etc). As PHP user you probably are somewhat familiar with C standard library (with PHP just puts a thin layer on top of), but you are a false beginner here because you need to learn to be much more careful with manual memory management, compiler erros vs warnings. Just pick some project whose specification is dead simple (a little console based game like sudoku might do) and build it from the bottom up. 2. Learn C, the Runtime: Get deeper into standard library functions. Pick something more sophisticated in terms of I/O. Learn the difference between static vs dynamic linking, and try to work around it just for the sake of it (make your own malloc is a classic). 3. Learn C, the Unix's companion. Figure out what a system call is and how it is unlike a regular function call. Learn Linux (I know you mentionen MINIX elsewhere, and it would be valuable in a 4th or 5th step, but for the sake of employability it is better to be a power user of a mainstream system than an expert in an academic one). Figure out stuff like virtual memory, how it works and how to affect it at the C level (which should be transparent, and mostly is but not 100%).
- blobfish 13y ago
  I was thinking somewhere on the similar lines when deciding how to approach this. I split the process into 3 initial steps as well. 1. Learn the C language. Read K&R book, then get my hands dirty with some relatively simple problems. Here I'm actually deciding between practicing with algorithmic problems and doing a simple project or I can probably do both. Anyway I'm leaning towards algorithms because they normally are short enough to be possible to work on with the minimal amount of knowledge on the standard library and are complicated enough to be a good practice, particularly when it comes to performance and memory usage. This approach would also make me learn how different data structures are handled in C and how to deal with memory management. 2. Learn systems programming. At this step after some initial reading I would like to join a relatively small open source project and try to fix some bugs or contribute some small changes to it. I didn't decide yet what particular project it could be so any suggestions are welcome :) At this step I should become comfortable with writing C and gain some basic knowledge on systems programming. 3. Get deeper into systems programming. This is were I'm deciding between taking on Linux/BSD or MINIX. I suppose MINIX should work very well as a learning tool for OS design and implementation. So it could make transition to Linux/BSD easier. At this stage I could probably join some open source OS project. What comes after that I'm not quite sure. There may be more steps involved or I may be ready to look for a job at this point. I may also need to decide what exactly I want to work on which leads me to the difficult question I raised to myself when thinking about this. Should I specialize from the very beginning or can I be a generalist with a strong general systems programming knowledge and then get to the details when the need arises based on particular job?

crpatino 13y ago

I am familiar with maybe half of the books you mention, and the selection seems quite solid. I would however recommend to spend less time reading and more time hacking. Also, try to approach this as a series of steps, not everything in one go: 1. Learn C, the Language: You should already know the basic components of structured programming (functions, loops, conditionals, etc). As PHP user you probably are somewhat familiar with C standard library (with PHP just puts a thin layer on top of), but you are a false beginner here because you need to learn to be much more careful with manual memory management, compiler erros vs warnings. Just pick some project whose specification is dead simple (a little console based game like sudoku might do) and build it from the bottom up. 2. Learn C, the Runtime: Get deeper into standard library functions. Pick something more sophisticated in terms of I/O. Learn the difference between static vs dynamic linking, and try to work around it just for the sake of it (make your own malloc is a classic). 3. Learn C, the Unix's companion. Figure out what a system call is and how it is unlike a regular function call. Learn Linux (I know you mentionen MINIX elsewhere, and it would be valuable in a 4th or 5th step, but for the sake of employability it is better to be a power user of a mainstream system than an expert in an academic one). Figure out stuff like virtual memory, how it works and how to affect it at the C level (which should be transparent, and mostly is but not 100%).

blobfish 13y ago
I was thinking somewhere on the similar lines when deciding how to approach this. I split the process into 3 initial steps as well. 1. Learn the C language. Read K&R book, then get my hands dirty with some relatively simple problems. Here I'm actually deciding between practicing with algorithmic problems and doing a simple project or I can probably do both. Anyway I'm leaning towards algorithms because they normally are short enough to be possible to work on with the minimal amount of knowledge on the standard library and are complicated enough to be a good practice, particularly when it comes to performance and memory usage. This approach would also make me learn how different data structures are handled in C and how to deal with memory management. 2. Learn systems programming. At this step after some initial reading I would like to join a relatively small open source project and try to fix some bugs or contribute some small changes to it. I didn't decide yet what particular project it could be so any suggestions are welcome :) At this step I should become comfortable with writing C and gain some basic knowledge on systems programming. 3. Get deeper into systems programming. This is were I'm deciding between taking on Linux/BSD or MINIX. I suppose MINIX should work very well as a learning tool for OS design and implementation. So it could make transition to Linux/BSD easier. At this stage I could probably join some open source OS project. What comes after that I'm not quite sure. There may be more steps involved or I may be ready to look for a job at this point. I may also need to decide what exactly I want to work on which leads me to the difficult question I raised to myself when thinking about this. Should I specialize from the very beginning or can I be a generalist with a strong general systems programming knowledge and then get to the details when the need arises based on particular job?