C programmers

[Pujah]

I want to teach myself C, how hard is it? And is it possible to master it in 3 months, keep in mind I can only spare 4 or 5 hours a week.

 

I have taken one course of C++ back in college sometime in 2002 and I am sorry to say that I remember nothing from that course. I do know java or at least I knew enough to pass the Sun Certified Programmer for Java 2 and haven’t used since. At work I use jcl, cobol, db2, pl/sql etc enough said. In my attempt to move from legacy programming to something I could actually enjoy I was planning to move to another dept within the same company. The problem is 80% of their programs are written in C and corn shell and they are in the process of converting it to java and perl which is great except I don’t know C

 

Now you can help by sharing your experience with C and if you have done any self study courses what where your challenges.

 

Ps. I am also trying to find C expert that I can count on if I ever get stuck on a piece of code.

 

Thanks in advance.

[Johnny B]

Originally posted by Puuja:

Ps. I am also trying to find C expert that I can count on if I ever get stuck on a piece of code.

 

Thanks in advance.

^what is the catch for the Xpert?

I know i'll be grilled for asking but heey , nothing in life is free.

 

** JB widens his arms to keep Fidel,Caano Geel and Ngonge away..... Go find yourselves a student !! **

[Pujah]

^LOL JB first thanks and the catch is to help fellow programmer…oh and you get a cookie at the end.

Now the first order of business is to set up my home environment and find online resources. I have Mac laptop that gets used for nothing more than online surfing and would like to put it to better use. I am open to all suggestions.

[Johnny B]

hmmmmmm, Mackkkkkkky , oh well , first things first , you do like this .. bla bla ... hold it .

we're infront of a huge decision making stage.

what is the best development environment for a C developer? skip it , there is no clear cut answer ,the best two shots beeing either XCode or VC, borland might sue us.

 

To make this decision , we've to take your mac habbit into consideration and opt for XCode , but then Is it good for a newbie, who said you're a newbie:p

 

Forget about ur mach habbit,How about turning ur to a PC ? dual OS, skip it , how about going down to the basement or garage and dusting off that old PII michine and installing Unix/Linux and the GNU C lib?

 

what about all the other operating systems, OS/? Solaris etc etc? aight , aight .. no more headache, just grap whichever one C compiler and feedback .

 

i want that coockie.

[Caano Geel]

Originally posted by Johnny B:

there is no clear cut answer ,the best two shots beeing either XCode or VC, borland might sue us.

GCC, gdb and emacs c-mode

 

 

Never could use a MAC that funny key always got in the way .. i gave the powerbook back in a week

[Johnny B]

CG, you gonna pay for this :mad:

First , you get red card for not having your own student. :

second , i like Puja so much i just can'texpose her to the tedious Unix/Linux ticos emacs c-mode.

third , neither i nor Puja are Mac mockers

 

and last but not least , she's already a Coffe addicted.

[Caano Geel]

<- backs away slowly

[Caano Geel]

steps back in quietly to ask ...

Puuja, why in the world is your company moving to java and at that mixing it with perl of all things! -- it kinda sounds like swapping a headache for a bellyache, while making it all bulky, unmaintainable (java) and unintelligible (perl)..

 

no criticism you understand, just wondering .. anyhow it atleast means they'll create the problems to keep the programmers employed for a while to come

[Johnny B]

"steps back in quietly " , i knew it !!

i think Puja named planing to work in another dept within the same company, and for that she is required to be a C guru to help port the old C code to beans.

As for the move , i do agree with ya , in my experience that cheif SWE would have been fired for non-cost-effective porting.

migerating from C to Java in 07? oh yeah, print" perl rocks!!" or die" puja is not porting";

 

Puja , if u wanna stay in touch with the windows world ,or would like to move your code between the Mac and a PC, microsoft has a VC for Mac too.

[Caano Geel]

^

I'm shocked as to how such a chief could of overlooked the virtues of whitespace!

[Pujah]

CG I really don’t know the exact reason but from the presentation that department gave it seemed the current system was very restrictive and that by moving the application interface into java it would be much more independent. Basically the department that I work in now mostly writes stuff in micro focuses cobol and we use drivers written in C by the other department. Now their plan is to migrate from C to java in order to eliminate shared memory issues we’ve been having. Whether that would work or not is yet to be seen most of the C programmers are very skeptical and you can guess who is pushing for the project.

 

Either way it is good news for me as I would much rather work with C/C++ and Java than on cobol whether it’s on mainframe or AIX.

 

PS. I will read through all the available compilers before I decide how to set up my development environment …though I will probably end up using something on unix as I am getting very comfortable with vi editor now.

 

I thank you both for your helpful information.

[Pujah]

Pointers pointers pointers how do they work in C? ====> this question is obviously directed at JB and CG …

 

What do I know about pointers? Hmm it turns out not much but here is an example of how it works in cobol.

 

define an elementary item in the linkage section with no picture clause and assign USAGE IS POINTER. ie

01 ws-pointer.

---05 pointer-1 usage is pointer.

. . .

In the program logic you can assign memory address to that pointer with the set address of pointer-1 to data-item = > data-item has to be in the linkage section.

 

The opposite can also be done for example if pointer-1 had the address you need you can assign it to data-item set address of data-item to pointer-1.

 

Am afraid that is where my knowledge of referencing and dereferencing memory blocks ends.

 

So where are the C experts don’t let us down

[Pujah]

Originally posted by Johnny B:

To make this decision , we've to take your mac habbit into consideration and opt for XCode , but then Is it good for a newbie, who said you're a newbie:p

 

XCODE it is

[Johnny B]

Originally posted by Puuja:

Pointers pointers pointers how do they work in C? ====> this question is obviously directed at JB and CG …

 

What do I know about pointers? Hmm it turns out not much but here is an example of how it works in MVS cobol.

 

define an elementary item in the linkage section with no picture clause and assign USAGE IS POINTER. ie

01 ws-pointer.

---05 pointer-1 usage is pointer.

. . .

In the program logic you can assign memory address to that pointer with the

set address of pointer-1 to data-item = > data-item has to be in the linkage section.

 

The opposite can also be done for example if pointer-1 had the address you need you can assign it to data-item

set address of data-item to pointer-1

.

 

Am afraid that is where my knowledge of referencing and dereferencing memory blocks ends.

 

So where are the C experts don’t let us down

We're right here , well it'd be almost a sin to talk about C and no to mention pointers, but since you're already coffe addicted , it'll be faster for you .

Poiners in C are Not that much different from what you've described in Il Sergente Cobol, just a little bit friendlier(dummier)

the princible is the same.

 

I guess after 5 minutes of reading this , you'll be enjoying C's closeness to the michine.

So Don't even try to pull the confused line on me , not at this stage anyway.

 

I'm willingly taking care of this easy stuff like poniters so i can leave the difficult ones for CG, the real Guru,that way i'll come off as helpful and win my coockie.

 

XCODE it is

Oh, what a choice !!

I knew you love ur Mac , but i diden't know that you love it this much , you decided to let it take care of your C/C++ endeavour.

[Pujah]

^^ Thanks that link is very helpfull

 

of to practice till the next question