This book is a first course in the skills of computer programming. It is not intended to cover all aspects of programming in C. The book is intended as a first step along the road to competent computer programming using sensible and proven design principles. The emphasis is always on good design practice and good coding style. The book is a self-contained package, the format of which is a three-part structure made up of short chapters. The first eleven chapters present an introduction to the C language. Chapters twelve to nineteen concentrate on the principles of good program design. The final part, chapters twenty to twenty-seven, combines the lessons learned in the earlier chapters and shows how to proceed from an initial statement of need through to a working program. Further features of C are explored to allow the design and implementation of solutions to more realistic problems. The book comprises the text itself, many short questions designed to elicit understanding of the ideas learned and exercises to put the theory into practice. To support this, the companion floppy disc contains solutions to the exercises using the 'cheat' system. The cheat system allows selective access to specific parts of a solution without showing the complete answer. Refer to the text for more details.