Texts on fundamentals of programming/computer science

[Colin Plumb]

It isn't C, and it's pretty heavy going alone, but "The Structure and
Interpretation of Computer Programs", by Abelson & Sussman (the textbook
for the first year CS intro for CS and EE programs at MIT) will teach
almost anyone a hell of a lot.  This goes for rank beginners through
Dennis Ritchie.  The C-Scheme compiler is available from MIT.

One thing I've wanted for a while, and never been able to find (Sedgewick's
"Algorithms" and G.H. Gonnet's "Handbook of Algorithms and Data Structures
come very close; after that, Knuth if you can read the goto-laden algorithms)
is a cookbook of data structures and algorithms.  Leave in the details (as
opposed to making them exercises), but make it brief, skip most of the math,
and explain the boundary cases and implementation issues.
-- 
	-Colin (uunet!microsoft!w-colinp)

"Don't listen to me.  I never do." - The Doctor