From:	"John M. Aldrich" <fighteer AT cs DOT com>
Newsgroups:	comp.os.msdos.djgpp
Subject:	Re: NEwbie
Date:	Mon, 14 Jul 1997 22:31:14 +0000
Organization:	Two pounds of chaos and a pinch of salt
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Message-ID:	<33CAA8B2.2EF8@cs.com>
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Reply-To:	fighteer AT cs DOT com
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To:	djgpp AT delorie DOT com
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Skater1284 wrote:
> 
>  I'm just starting to learn DJGPP coming out of knowing very little of
> QBasic and knowing little algebra. What can you reccomend i do to learn.
> What books are good for complete idiots?

First, find a book that teaches you C in the right way, and is easy for
beginners.  Many folks recommend _Teach Yourself C in 21 Days_, but I've
seen some bad examples come out of that book.  My preference is _The New
C Primer Plus, 2nd Edition_, by the Waite Group.  You probably won't
find this in your average bookstore; try college campus bookstores, or
look it up by its ISBN:  0-672-30319-1.  The hardest part to learning a
procedure-oriented language is understanding the concept of functions,
something this book covers very well.  It also takes a grand tour
through pointers, one of the stickiest concepts in any language.

Some other tips:  be sure to get the RHIDE IDE along with DJGPP; it's a
full-fledged development environment with an interface very similar to
Turbo C and Turbo Pascal.  BE ABSOLUTELY SURE to check the '-Wall' and
'-O' switches in the compiler options; gcc will find nearly all the
mistakes you make if you give it the chance.  And try to learn from
examples.  Find the source code to some program you know well and study
it to see how it does what it does.  I got two thirds of my knowledge of
C from a MUD server.  ;)

One final tip:  RTFM.  Always read the documentation.  Even if you think
you've got it right, read it again.  There is so much documentation
available for DJGPP that I'm amazed people have as many problems as they
do; 95 percent of the time their questions are answered somewhere in the
docs.  The Info reader that comes with DJGPP (and is built into RHIDE)
is fully searchable; just press 's' and type in the word that's
bothering you.  Do this enough and you'll be sure to find what you need.

Good luck!

-- 
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|      John M. Aldrich       | "Always listen to experts.  They'll  |
|       aka Fighteer I       | tell you what can't be done, and why.|
|   mailto:fighteer AT cs DOT com   | Then do it."                         |
| http://www.cs.com/fighteer |                - Lazarus Long        |
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