Next Steps

This book is most likely a monumental undertaking for a beginner programmer, or even a programmer with no experience with many of the topics covered inside. You have successfully learned an introductory amount of knowledge of C, testing, secure coding, algorithms, data structures, unit testing, and general applied problem solving. Congratulations. You should be a much better programmer now.

I recommend you now go read other books on the C programming language. You can't go wrong with The C Programming Language by Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie, the creators of the C language. My book teaches you an initial practical version of C that gets the job done, mostly as a means of teaching you other topics. This book will teach you deeper C as defined by the creators and the C standard.

If you want to continue improving as a programmer, I recommend that you learn at least 4 programming languages. If you know one language, and now you know C, then I recommend you try learning any of these programming languages as your next ones:

• Python with my book Learn Python The Hard Way, 3rd Edition

• Ruby with my book Learn Ruby The Hard Way, 3rd Edition

• Go with their list of documentation which is another language by the authors of the C language, and frankly much better.

• Lua which is a very fun language, and has a decent API for C that you might enjoy now.

• JavaScript, although I'm not sure which book is best for this language.

There are many programming languages available, so choose whichever language interests you and learn it. I recommend this because the easiest way to become adept at programming and build confidence is to strengthen your ability to learn multiple languages. Four languages seems to be the breaking point where a beginner transitions to being a capable programmer. It's also just a lot of fun.