Re: programming help
Matthew Grant <msgrant@ureach.com> writes:
> I am wondering if anyone could give me direction or tips with
> beginning C on the Hurd.
I take it you don't have much experience with C?
Plain ANSI-C works on the hurd, i.e. you can use things like fopen,
stdin, getc, so examples and exercises from any decent book on C
programming should work. It's a good idea to get familiar with plain
ANSI-C and its library first.
Next, the hurd also supports standard unix/posix API:s, so you can use
things like (n)curses, X, sockets, etc, like on any other unix. I
think the glibc manual is a reasonable introduction to many of these
things. There are also lots of books available.
When you have gotten bored with the unix way of doing things, you can
try more hurdish things. I think other people on this list can give you
better suggestions (I'm no hurd hacker), but you can get familiar with
the hurd libraries, read hurd source code, write some simpler or more
complicated translators. There is some documentation, but the primary
reading material will have to be the hurd source code, I guess.
You can also read up on Mach programming. I don't think that is as
useful as unix or hurd programming, but at least there's some books
and documentation about it.
Or you could start from a different angle: Start with some free
program that you use, and improve it, add features that you have been
missing, or make it work better with hurd-specific things (e.g. hack
the cp program in GNU fileutils to work better with translators, as
have been discussed on this list recently).
Happy hacking,
/Niels
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