The first programming course in my college and I’m sure in a lot of others was “Programming in C” and for good reason. Like it or not, C is one of the most important programming languages to learn as a budding computer scientist.
Programming in C begins to teach you (the hard way) how software actually works and if you’ve programmed before, makes you appreciate the beauty of some high-level features in languages that you’ve probably taken for granted this whole time.
However, as is the case with most exuberant college students, we want to learn programming, not computer science (a discussion perhaps, for another day) and learning C doesn’t inspire confidence in building actual software that actual people will use.
Contrary to popular belief however, C is a really easy language to learn and once you’ve got a hang of the fundamentals, is really easy to build actual software with. The issue lies in the way it is taught in an academic setting. A lot of the quality of life features of the language are glossed over and leave students scared of it.
Here are some features that I wish they taught us in college that make C seem more approachable and help you use it not just as a computer scientist, but an actual programmer.
