After five years of professional Java (and to a lesser extent, Python) programming and slowly feeling my computer science education slip away, I decided I wanted to broaden my horizons / general usefulness to the world and do something that feels more (to me) like I really have an influence over the machine. I chose to learn C and Unix programming since I feel like that is where many of the most interesting problems are.
My end goal is to be able to do this professionally, if for no other reason than the fact that I have to spend 40-50 hours per week on work that pays the bills, so it may as well also be the type of coding I want to get better at. Of course, you don’t get hired to do things you haven’t done before, so for now I am ramping up on my own.
To this end, I started with K&R, which was a great resource in part due to the exercises spread throughout each chapter. After that I moved on to Computer Systems: A Programmer’s Perspective, followed by ten chapters of Advanced Programming in the Unix Environment. When I am done with this book, I will read Unix Network Programming.
What I’m missing in the Stevens books is the lack of programming problems; they mainly document functionality and provide examples, with a few end-of-chapter questions following. I feel that I would benefit much more from being challenged to use the knowledge in each chapter a la K&R. I could write some test program for each function, but this is a less desirable method as (1) I would probably be less motivated than if I were rising to some external challenge, and (2) I will naturally only think to use the function in the ways that have already occurred to me.
So, I’d like to get some recommendations on how to practice. Obviously, my first choice would be to find some resource that has Unix programming challenges. I have also considered finding and attempting to contribute to some open source C project, but this is a bit daunting as there would be some overhead in learning to use the software, then learning the codebase. The only open-source C project I can think of that I use regularly is Python, and I’m not sure how easy that would be to get started on.
That said, I’m open to all kinds of suggestions as there are likely things I haven’t even thought of.
Reinvent a lot of the core Unix utilities. Most of these were (and still are) written in C, so they are a good way to start off learning. Depending on your skill, pick harder or easier utilities to copy.
Try writing your own malloc. You’ll learn a lot about Unix and a lot of C programming as well.
Google for computer science operating system courses and do the projects there. Many schools have these projects on public websites so you could get everything you need. Here is a link to Purdue’s site. Give the shell project a shot; it was difficult, but really educational.