Accelerated C Programming for Experienced Programmers (2 Weeks)

I had been learned C in university but honestly, that was useless and I am not good at programming at that time, I also have no idea what a real-life C program is.

I make this repo is to learn C seriously again, and my clear purpose is to dig into PrimJS to understand how it works.

Caution: This course is made for experienced programmers

Week 1: C Fundamentals and Professional Development Practices

Day 1: C Language Essentials and Development Environment

• C language overview and distinguishing features
• Setting up a professional development environment
• Compilation process and build tools
• Basic syntax, functions, and program structure
• Memory model and execution flow
• Debugging: Using debuggers (GDB, LLDB) and debug builds
• Practice: Create a multi-file program with debugging configuration

Day 2: Data Types, Memory Management, and Pointers

• Primitive types, modifiers, and type conversions
• Variables, scope, and storage classes
• Pointers fundamentals and pointer arithmetic
• Dynamic memory allocation and management
• Memory leak detection tools (Valgrind, AddressSanitizer)
• Testing: Unit testing memory management functions
• Practice: Implement a dynamic array with memory tests

Day 3: Arrays, Strings, and Memory Operations

• Array implementation and relationship to pointers
• String handling in C (null-terminated strings)
• Memory manipulation functions (memcpy, memmove, memset)
• Cache-friendly data structures and algorithms
• Debugging: Finding buffer overflows and memory corruption
• Practice: Build a string library with comprehensive tests

Day 4: Structures, Complex Data Types, and Testing

• Struct and union definitions and memory layout
• Self-referential structures and complex data structures
• Function pointers and callbacks
• Testing Framework: Introduction to frameworks (Unity, Check, CUnit)
• Test-driven development (TDD) in C
• Practice: Implement a hash table with complete test suite

Day 5: Database Programming in C

• Introduction to database APIs in C (SQLite, libpq, MySQL C API)
• Connection management and connection pooling
• Executing queries and handling result sets
• Prepared statements and parameterized queries
• Transaction management
• Error handling in database operations
• Practice: Build a database access layer with connection pooling

Week 2: Advanced Topics and Building a Real Application

Day 6: Concurrency, Parallel Programming, and Thread-safe Database Access

• Process vs. threads programming
• POSIX threads (pthreads) API
• Mutex, semaphores, and condition variables
• Thread safety and race conditions
• Thread-safe database operations
• Connection pooling in multi-threaded environments
• Practice: Implement a thread-safe database service

Day 7: Performance Optimization and Profiling

• Compiler optimization flags
• Profiling tools (gprof, perf, Valgrind)
• Database query optimization
• Statement caching and batch operations
• CPU cache considerations and alignment
• Testing: Performance benchmarking methodologies
• Practice: Optimize database operations and benchmark results

Day 8: System Programming and I/O Models

• File I/O and buffering strategies
• Socket programming and network I/O models
• Non-blocking I/O techniques
• Memory-mapped files for performance
• I/O multiplexing for database and network operations
• Debugging: Network and I/O debugging tools
• Practice: Build a non-blocking server with database integration

Day 9: Integration Testing and Continuous Integration

• Integration testing with databases
• Test fixtures and database setup/teardown
• Mocking database connections for unit tests
• Database migration for testing
• Continuous integration for C projects
• Code coverage tools (gcov, lcov)
• Practice: Create a test suite with database integration tests

Day 10: Final Project - Server Monitoring Application with Database

• Architecture design with database persistence
• Concurrent implementation with thread-safe database access
• Database schema design for metrics storage
• Query optimization for metrics retrieval
• Performance benchmarking of database operations
• Final Project: Complete server monitoring application with database backend

Final Project Overview

By the end of this course, you'll have built a server monitoring application that:

1. Collects system metrics (CPU, memory, disk, network) efficiently
2. Stores collected metrics in a database (SQLite or similar)
3. Uses a thread pool for concurrent processing
4. Implements thread-safe database operations
5. Features optimized queries for metrics storage and retrieval
6. Includes a complete test suite with database integration tests
7. Demonstrates professional-grade C programming practices
8. Supports configuration via files
9. Implements robust error handling and recovery