Taking a break from sysadmin work, I want to learn a little programming. It seems that the C programming language plays a huge role in the Linux history and community so that will be my language of choice. The last couple of weeks I have spent some time learning C using the C for Dummies book written by Dan Gookin.

So far so good. The book has a slow pace that I do enjoy, the book makes sure you learn the basics by repeating key topics. This approach may drive some people crazy. I find it rather refreshing knowing that the author understands that we are “learning”.

Having a good background writing shell scripts, I find that learning C is a lot easier than I thought. It’s nice to see where at lot of other languages get their idea’s from. It also helps me understand a little more about how Linux works, and what “Open Source” is all about. It’s cool to have the source code, but it’s even better  if you can do something with it.