C for high level programmers (slides)
I think the problem with learning C is that you need to learn stuff like make, autoconf, how the compiler + preprocessors work (what do all those flags even mean!?), how making "cross-platform" stuff works, how to pull in and use "libraries", C-isms, how to test, etc. C itself is a very small and simple language, but the tooling and patterns are old and mysterious.<p>In college I learned how to program embedded systems with C (and ASM). Once I knew how to debug, build, and push it onto the device, it was surprisingly easy and beautiful. There's no confusing and magical abstractions, it's just you and the hardware. You pull up the microcontroller's manual, and as long as you have an idea of what the lingo means, you can make it dance to your will.<p>Something I disliked was that with both microcontrollers I used, there was dark magic involved in building and uploading your binary. One of the devices provided examples for a specific IDE, so I imported that example and used it as a base. I could keep modifying it and keep adding files, but I never managed to setup a "new" project. The other device was similar, but instead of using an IDE it provided a Makefile, which was nicer.<p>Does anyone know any good resources on learning and writing real-world C? I've looked at C projects here and there over the years, with the most interesting being GNU Coreutils... But even if I can eventually understand what some code does, how do I learn why it does it that way?<p>I'd love for a guide that showed things like: "do X and Y because of this and that", "test X and Y by running the following", "write tests using XYZ", "debug X using Tool A, and Y using Tool B", "pull in this library by copying these files into these places, and use it by adding the following lines to the following files", "generate docs by pulling in this tool and set it up by doing the following", etc.<p>In the web world there's a massive set of problems, but it tends to be easy to find "boilerplate" generators that will get you up and running. And after you've tried out a few of them, you can usually pick up how people are mixing and matching different tools.<p>EDIT: Another comment linked to "Learn C The Hard Way" [0], and after browsing through the chapters it seems to cover a lot of the topics I'm interested in.<p>[0] <a href="http://c.learncodethehardway.org/book/" rel="nofollow">http://c.learncodethehardway.org/book/</a>