Fluent C

Chapter 12. Conclusion

What You’ve Learned

After reading this book, you are now familiar with several advanced C programming concepts. When looking at larger code examples, you now know why the code looks the way it does. You now know the reasoning behind the design decisions made in that code. For example, in the Ethernet driver sample code presented in the Preface of this book, you now understand why there is an explicit driverCreate method and why there is a DRIVER_HANDLE that holds state information. The patterns from Part I guided the decisions made in this example and many others discussed throughout the book.

The pattern stories from Part II showed you the benefits of applying the patterns from this book and how to grow code bit by bit through the application of patterns. When facing your next C programming problem, review the problem sections of the patterns and see whether one of them matches your problem. In that case, you are very lucky because then you can benefit from the guidance provided by the patterns.

Further Reading

This book helps C programming novices to become advanced C programmers. Here are some other books that particularly helped me improve my C programming skills:

• Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship by Robert C. Martin (Prentice Hall, 2008) discusses the basic principles of how to implement high-quality code that lasts over time. It is a good read for any programmer and covers topics like testing, documentation, code style, and ...