The Art and Science of C. A Library Based Introduction to Computer Science

Customer Reviews

Too bad printing...

2007-06-26
I was frightened when I opened the book... The characters in the book look like a copied-material of a very very old 8-pin dot-printer output...

Teaches "Roberts," not C

2006-06-07
This book is annoying with the way the author asks the user to write programs using his custom library functions, as opposed to the standard C commands. Because of this, I did not learn about scanf until probably the 7th or 8th week of the C programming course I was in. I feel like that alone warrants a 1-star rating. If you buy this book, you will be learning to program in "Roberts," not C.

Two great books

2004-09-13
I have read and worked through both of Eric Roberts books on C.
Of all the programming books I have read, and there are many, his two are the best.

My only regret is that he has not written books on C++.

The Art and Science of C

2004-06-01
I thought this was a wonderful beginners book. It gave me the basics and then allowed me to go on and try new things by myself. By the end I really felt like I could write my own programs in C.

I only gave it four stars because I think five would have to be a textbook that really brought the information to life, while this one was rather dry.

The Art and Science of C

2003-08-17
I borrowed this book from library and believed I had made a right decision.

Quoted from the book, Mr. Roberts have been teaching computer science for over 20 years, I'm not sure how long he has taught C language but I suppose this book is written in a way that he believes is most beneficial to the readers, based on his teaching experience.

C is a cryptic and complex language, so the author teaches in a stepwise manner, he hides the complexity by introducing his private libraries and data abstractions. So the readers implement the functionality of C, which is independent from the complexity of C; once the readers have enough grasp at C, they may move on to explore the complexity of C.

The author have done these with good intention because data types in ANSI C are limited in size, for example, the data type int is different from our perception of integer in daily life. The address operator & may be confusing as well.

How did I use the book? I rewrited all the examples presented in book without his private libaries. I did the exercises in the book without his private libraries as well. Instead of copying all his codes and getting them work, I tried to make errors: for example, in the simple hello world program, omitted the preprocessor operator #, then read the error messages. I also tried to improve the efficiency of my algorithm.

This maybe a good introductory book for people who have experience in programming in languages other than C since the syntax of C may confuse them, but owning it is not recommended.

DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK! 2003-03-19
Please, please, do not buy this book.
I am a Grad Student at NIU and we use this book for the basic C class here. This book is useless! Most of the book needs the "specially made for the book" header files included with it to run the C code; therefore the book does not teach real C. If you go on to any thing higher in Computer Science this book will be of no use to you, due to the way it is written. ...DO NOT BUY BAD C BOOKS LIKE THIS!

Yeah, I agree... 2002-10-23
...perhaps it might be useful to adopt Eric Roberts' approach to learn computer science; learn the fundamentals. ... But if you would like to learn how to think like a Computer Scientist, this book is a great launching pad for future success. You learn from the ground up, and you go one step at a time so that you can understand and master the techniques and methodologies that will enable you to think more creatively and create more successfully when you move on to more advanced programming languages.

More than just coding 2001-12-08
Is it your dream to become an excelent programmer?
Are you going to studie computer science?

If you can answer only one of these questions with yes, then this book is for you!

But why is this book superior to other books of the same subject?
It helps to develop the right mindset needed to become a true computer scientist not just a programmer.
The use of libraries and abstractions from the beginning (this can not be emphasized enough; i have seen people building there own Java-packages with the same functionallity than the builtin ones, just because they were not able to use what was already there!). It is written in a style that shows that E. Roberts is an excelent teacher. For teaching basic software engineering and developement techniques.
Some reviewers have mentioned that the syntax of C is hidden away (to far?) from the student because E. Roberts uses his own libraries. I think it is a reasonable approach, for an introduction, especially when the language is C, but even more important, students learn to reuse code through modules and libraries.
The complexity of the hole language can be teached later, after reading the successor of this book by the same author, by diving into the sources of the libraries. After reading these two books by E. Roberts you have prepared yourself for the further studie of computer science and computer languages

The Library-Based approach does more harm than good 2001-11-19
THE ART AND SCIENCE OF C was the textbook for the first-semester freshman college course on C programming at the university that I graduated from. It was a total disaster. The semester that followed (where we used the excellent A BOOK ON C by Al Kelley and Ira Pohl) consisted of unlearning virtually everything we had learned based on this book. The reason was that although the book claims to teach the reader how to program in C, it actually teaches the student how to program in Eric Roberts C, which is based on non-standard libraries that are completely different than the ones used everywhere else in the world.

The book is based upon several libraries designed to make things easier for the student. These libraries actually replace most of the standard C statements. Input/output is now done through these libraries, as are file handling, string functions and a host of other basic operations. The problem is that by replacing all these elementary processes the user is left learning nothing that is applicable to anything else outside of Eric Roberts C. In order to use any programming language at all, the student will have to go back to the beginning and learn most of everything over again. This will invariably lead to confusion as students struggle to determine which of the items they have learned are "real" C and which are the made-up items that have no usefulness. The similarity of the traditional and Roberts libraries result in quite a few mix-ups in syntax.

I have criticized the book's use of pointless libraries, but there are several things that it does well. There is a lot of good introductory material here for people who are unfamiliar with the bare basics of programming: loops (for, while, etc), conditionals, and syntax. By using the simpler libraries, the book teaches the student the basics of programming, if nothing of the specifics. This may well pave the way for the student to move on to learning real C, but for actually teaching the student anything that is useful, it fails and adds extra step that a novice programmer must go through before he/she can get to something that's informative and practical.

While in my personal library I kept almost all the Computer Science books that I used in my undergraduate days, this was not one of them, and was a book that I quickly sold back to the bookstore at the earliest opportunity. If you don't plan on using C in anything beyond what you learn here, then this book might be fine for you. If you want to learn C without having to relearn a lot of things later, avoid this one.

Excellent Introduction to Programming in C 2000-07-06
Having originally come from a non-programming background, I found this book an excellent stand-alone introduction to programming in general. The use of libraries allows you to learn one aspect of the language at a time instead of throwing everything at you at once. By the end of the book, you've learned all the fundamentals thoroughly and you understand enough to write the libraries yourself. The libraries are good helper functions that I've found useful in my later code and even in my code at the industry level. (Practicing decomposition and code-reuse is essential for developing a solid, long-term programming style)

The book emphasizes good programming methodology rather than just concentrating on memorizing the syntactical. You can easily look up standard ansi C syntax in reference books like "The C Programming Language" by Kernighan and Ritchie (which I highly recommend), but you can't always find a book that covers basic programming concepts in general. The use of libraries instead of standard ANSI functions allows you to think flexibly, realizing that there are many levels of abstraction and that there are many ways of programming the same thing. This is especially beneficial when/if you go on to learn other languages. However, I would say that C is a good language to start out with because it encompasses more of the lower level details that may be hidden in other languages but are essential for understanding why your program works, isn't optimized, etc.

Once you've finished this book, you can easily ease into the second book in this introductory series, Programming Abstractions in C, which takes you to the next step in becoming a good programmer. It explains many standard algorithms liked hashtables, linked lists, etc. The two books combined build a solid foundation for programming in C and leave you prepared to go into more complex algorithms and other languages. I highly recommend this book (I always keep it close at hand).