In 1992, as a new lecturer in Geographic Information Systems at Leicester University, I was asked to teach a postgraduate course in programming for GIS. Two years previously I had taught myself the programming language С as part of my masters thesis, so I thought it might be a 'Good Idea' to develop a 'C Programming for GIS' module. That Good Idea soon turned into far too many hours in front of а С compiler and word processor, trying to distil the essence of a complex low-level programming language in terms that would be relevant to non-programming GIS students. Despite the plethora of С textbooks at the time, there was none with an emphasis on the kinds of programming problems faced by those with spatial applications in mind. I was forced to provide detailed web-based notes illustrated with plenty of programming examples that could be downloaded by students.