3 Recommended Tips to C Programming
There are lots of articles and tutorials on C language so I didn’t write this article to teach you about how to code in C language but to give you some tips on how best to learn the language the fastest and easy way. Before I go further, I assume you know why you want to learn programming. For me, I write C programs for embedded and console applications.
The early days embedded engineers learnt how to program in assembly language before moving on to higher level compiled languages mainly C. Using myself as an example, I wrote assembly programs for about two years before moving to learning how to write C program, so what I’m trying to say is that you don’t need to go for any special tutorial classes to become C expert, most C programmers are self-taught.
- freeCodeCamp: Recently, a friend shared this link The C Beginner’s Handbook: Learn C Programming Language basics in just a few hours, I went through the article and I definitely recommend this for beginners. A well detailed C tutorial in just one click. freeCodeCamp is a non-profit organization that consists of an interactive learning web platform, an online community forum, chat rooms, online publications and local organizations that intend to make learning programming accessible to anyone.
I’m not part of the freeCodeCamp community but they have a very good learning contents on their website.
2. Visual Studio Code: “is a source-code editor developed by Microsoft for Windows, Linux and macOS. It includes support for debugging, embedded Git control and GitHub, syntax highlighting, intelligent code completion, snippets, and code refactoring. It is highly customizable, allowing users to change the theme, keyboard shortcuts, preferences, and install extensions that add additional functionality. The source code is free and open source and released under the permissive MIT License. The compiled binaries are freeware and free for private or commercial use.” — by Wikipedia.
VS code is the number one for many developers (also suggested by
Amigoscode), I basically use it for most of my embedded C applications with the extension PlatformIO IDE. I recommend VS code because of its intellisense features, UX and customizing workspace. Yeah, You can use more than one programming environment, as an embedded engineer, I use other platforms developed on Java (Netbeans — like MPLABX IDE by Microchip Technology and Eclipsed-based IDEs like TrueSTUDIO by ST Microelectronics).
To use the VS code for C programming, install the C/C++ Compile Run extension, In order to compile with this extension, you will need to install gcc on your computer. If you are using windows, you need to install MinGW tool, and then read this article to be sure that mingw is properly installed on your machine.
Note: If you find it difficult to setup your compiler, I suggest using an online compiler platform called ideone.com.
3. Google Search: The frequent questions I get from beginners is “Which is the best book to learn how to code?”. Well, my answer still remains that you can’t get everything in a single book, yes, you will definitely learn something but not everything, The C Programming Language by Brian W.Kernighan , Dennis M.Ritchie is a very good book to read but I always recommend people to Google search their code problems, you will definitely get the answer or tip to your question online. The best thing is to learn how to use Google to solve your problem.
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