So there I was, 18 years old, having been raised on a toxic stew of MS-BASIC, Apple II assembly and some MPW Pascal. My mind was poisoned. Everything I knew about programming was wrong. I read book after book on programming and CS, but none of them really seemed to make a real dent in my style.
Enter C For Dummies. In a few months, this book reshaped my concept of what it meant to program a computer. It does not spend time teaching a language; C is presented precisely because its syntax and commands can be covered in about ten minutes, and its structure becomes absolutely transparent within a few days of looking at C code. It does not spend time walking the reader through common coding tasks, as a Learn X In 24 Hours text might.
C For Dummies teaches the fundamentals of programming mastery. Abstraction, modularity, design paradigms, compilation and interpretation, and more topics are presented in a style which is exactly as simple as it can be, and no simpler. C allows these topics to be covered without becoming mired in details which would otherwise plague the implementer.
It will not show you how to write a GUI, scrape a web page, develop a social networking website or create a network server. It will, however, guide a dedicated reader through an exploration of immensely powerful programming technique, and it will prepare the reader to solve any problem in any language for the future.
C For Dummies is not a machine gun, putting power into casual hands. It is a light saber, rewarding discipline and practice with unstoppable capability.