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C is a very simple language. I have used just the official old book to create a compiler for it: https://www.amazon.com/Programming-Language-2nd-Brian-Kernigha

C is a very simple language. I have used just the official old book to create a compiler for it: https://www.amazon.com/Programming-Language-2nd-Brian-Kernighan/dp/0131103628 https://www.amazon.com/Programming-Language-2nd-Brian-Kernig... The best thing you can do is finding some open source code that interest you, read it and write it. For example, I write my own controllers for CNCs, and there are lots of code for controlling stepper motors out there. I also learned OpenGL and sockets this way long time ago. On the other hand, C is a terrible language for any big project unless you automate it some way. I use mostly lisp in order to write C code automatically. C is too low level for writing any substantial code. Lisp has things like Macros(nothing to do with c macros) that can make you write code 10x, to 50x faster easily.

3fe9a03ccd14ca5 7y ago
> The best thing you can do is finding some open source code that interest you, read it and write it. Has reading source code in a language that’s unfamiliar to you shown to be of any real benefit to learning? It seems you need at least a little bit of foundational experience with it before your brain can even parse what you’re seeing in a beneficial way.
- dandigangi 7y ago
  I'd tend to agree here also. I didn't start reading source code until a couple years in because I couldn't really put it to use. It becomes 10x more valuable when I was deep into my career learning from the big shots. It _can_ help no doubt but not sure that's the best way to start. Especially with a language like C. It's not so straight forward without some training or CS education.
  - clarry 7y ago
    > It becomes 10x more valuable when I was deep into my career learning from the big shots. Yeah well OP said they've 15+ years of experience so.. > Especially with a language like C. It's not so straight forward without some training or CS education. I agree with pritovido, when they say C is a very simple language. Sure, it has grown its quirks and gotchas along with some cruft (the kind of things you wouldn't learn about in a CS curriculum anyway), but at its core it really is very simple.
- clarry 7y ago
  > Has reading source code in a language that’s unfamiliar to you shown to be of any real benefit to learning? Absolutely! You start finding idiomatic patterns and "oh, so that's how they do it" kind of things. Find library functions you never knew about but now you do. Find weird things, and look them up in a manual/reference/SO/chatroom. Things that you might find in a book, but a book that covers all the idioms and practice and weird things is gonna be as thick as the bible, and it'll get outdated (it doesn't help that most books are focused on teaching the basics rather than showing off how to architect your application well). Things that you can learn the hard way by why not look and see and learn? > It seems you need at least a little bit of foundational experience with it before your brain can even parse what you’re seeing in a beneficial way. Nah, you just need programming experience (in a similar paradigm) in general. A lot of what you learned from languages before will translate. Also OP mentioned that "I can write C" and "I've started reading 'Modern C'", so it's not like they're looking for their first Hello World snippet. OP said they've got 15+ years of programming experience. At that point, picking up a new language is all about learning the vocabulary and idioms, plus the few unique or tricky or quirky things that don't show up in other languages (or that aren't obvious from looking at code). The fastest way to get to that vocabulary is to look at real code.
- pritovido 7y ago
  >Has reading source code in a language that’s unfamiliar to you shown to be of any real benefit to learning? Yes, I think so. The parent has experience with other languages, like python, javascript and go. C has a very similar paradigm. If it were clojure it would be different. I find exposition to new languages real usage the best way to learn them. I went to the UK to learn english, Germany to learn German, could be painful at first, but works, specially if you know a little about what is all about. Your brain makes sense of everything by itself in a magical way. That is the way you learn your native language.
- hombre_fatal 7y ago
  For me there's almost no wisdom to assimilate when reading source code until I've given a fair shot at using the language and experiencing its obstacles. Then seeing other people overcome them is where almost all of the a-ha moments are.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
ctas 7y ago
You use Lisp to write C (on Microcontrollers)? Would appreciate more info on that.
- cjbprime 7y ago
  Not the OP, but as I understand it NASA's JPL has been doing this for decades for space missions.
- williamDafoe 7y ago
  That a horrific mistake that MIT nitwhits used to teach students at the end of 6.001 - how to write opaque, horrible lisp programs in languages such as "C".
- slowandcurious 7y ago
  You could consider this. https://ferret-lang.org/ https://ferret-lang.org/
kahlonel 7y ago
> C is too low level for writing any substantial code. Do people not realize that projects like Linux and pretty much every car's ECU software (pretty "substantial" in my opinion) is written in C before claiming this? I'm not saying these software are 100% bug free, but this claim isn't accurate either. You _can_ write substantial C code when you have a good understanding of the tooling around it. Mere learning the syntax isn't enough.
- sramsay 7y ago
  I'm so tired of hearing about what you can't do in C and the "only thing" it's good for. You can't write big systems. It's only for embedded. It's such a crackup, because the number of developers who haven't got the memo on this is really staggering. How many lines of code is GTK? Or Postgres? Or Nginx? Never mind languages and operating systems. I suppose Vim (~335,000 lines) or git (in the 200,000 range) is not "large" in comparison to some things, but I suspect that's actually the kind of number people think is "too big for C." People also seem not to realize that the reason that Python library is so fast, is because it's actually wrapping C code. And that code is very often not doing some frighteningly low-level thing, but just doing ordinary stuff.
  - samatman 7y ago
    The "steel man" version of this argument is that, if you're embarking on a new codebase which you have good reason to expect will grow to be large, have a very good reason to write it in C, or use a more appropriate language. There some reasons to do it, but fewer than there were when most of the projects you've name-checked were started. I'll skip the part where we review what the other options are, this is HN, we've all seen that thread before.
    - acqq 7y ago
      Knowing how some big software systems lived through more than a decade each, I'd claim that the less they used C++ and the more used C++ compilers to write a C-like code they were better. The worst parts of the project were exactly those that used the "cool" C++ features. C is much better for really long-lived projects than C++ is. C++ is a maintenance nightmare in comparison. Linux kernel is also a good and famous big long-lived project which I claim would have never even survived had it been written in C++. Linus seems to have believed the same.

3fe9a03ccd14ca5 7y ago

> The best thing you can do is finding some open source code that interest you, read it and write it. Has reading source code in a language that’s unfamiliar to you shown to be of any real benefit to learning? It seems you need at least a little bit of foundational experience with it before your brain can even parse what you’re seeing in a beneficial way.

dandigangi 7y ago
I'd tend to agree here also. I didn't start reading source code until a couple years in because I couldn't really put it to use. It becomes 10x more valuable when I was deep into my career learning from the big shots. It _can_ help no doubt but not sure that's the best way to start. Especially with a language like C. It's not so straight forward without some training or CS education.
- clarry 7y ago
  > It becomes 10x more valuable when I was deep into my career learning from the big shots. Yeah well OP said they've 15+ years of experience so.. > Especially with a language like C. It's not so straight forward without some training or CS education. I agree with pritovido, when they say C is a very simple language. Sure, it has grown its quirks and gotchas along with some cruft (the kind of things you wouldn't learn about in a CS curriculum anyway), but at its core it really is very simple.
clarry 7y ago
> Has reading source code in a language that’s unfamiliar to you shown to be of any real benefit to learning? Absolutely! You start finding idiomatic patterns and "oh, so that's how they do it" kind of things. Find library functions you never knew about but now you do. Find weird things, and look them up in a manual/reference/SO/chatroom. Things that you might find in a book, but a book that covers all the idioms and practice and weird things is gonna be as thick as the bible, and it'll get outdated (it doesn't help that most books are focused on teaching the basics rather than showing off how to architect your application well). Things that you can learn the hard way by why not look and see and learn? > It seems you need at least a little bit of foundational experience with it before your brain can even parse what you’re seeing in a beneficial way. Nah, you just need programming experience (in a similar paradigm) in general. A lot of what you learned from languages before will translate. Also OP mentioned that "I can write C" and "I've started reading 'Modern C'", so it's not like they're looking for their first Hello World snippet. OP said they've got 15+ years of programming experience. At that point, picking up a new language is all about learning the vocabulary and idioms, plus the few unique or tricky or quirky things that don't show up in other languages (or that aren't obvious from looking at code). The fastest way to get to that vocabulary is to look at real code.
pritovido 7y ago
>Has reading source code in a language that’s unfamiliar to you shown to be of any real benefit to learning? Yes, I think so. The parent has experience with other languages, like python, javascript and go. C has a very similar paradigm. If it were clojure it would be different. I find exposition to new languages real usage the best way to learn them. I went to the UK to learn english, Germany to learn German, could be painful at first, but works, specially if you know a little about what is all about. Your brain makes sense of everything by itself in a magical way. That is the way you learn your native language.
hombre_fatal 7y ago
For me there's almost no wisdom to assimilate when reading source code until I've given a fair shot at using the language and experiencing its obstacles. Then seeing other people overcome them is where almost all of the a-ha moments are.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

ctas 7y ago

You use Lisp to write C (on Microcontrollers)? Would appreciate more info on that.

cjbprime 7y ago
Not the OP, but as I understand it NASA's JPL has been doing this for decades for space missions.
williamDafoe 7y ago
That a horrific mistake that MIT nitwhits used to teach students at the end of 6.001 - how to write opaque, horrible lisp programs in languages such as "C".
slowandcurious 7y ago
You could consider this. https://ferret-lang.org/ https://ferret-lang.org/

kahlonel 7y ago

> C is too low level for writing any substantial code. Do people not realize that projects like Linux and pretty much every car's ECU software (pretty "substantial" in my opinion) is written in C before claiming this? I'm not saying these software are 100% bug free, but this claim isn't accurate either. You _can_ write substantial C code when you have a good understanding of the tooling around it. Mere learning the syntax isn't enough.

sramsay 7y ago
I'm so tired of hearing about what you can't do in C and the "only thing" it's good for. You can't write big systems. It's only for embedded. It's such a crackup, because the number of developers who haven't got the memo on this is really staggering. How many lines of code is GTK? Or Postgres? Or Nginx? Never mind languages and operating systems. I suppose Vim (~335,000 lines) or git (in the 200,000 range) is not "large" in comparison to some things, but I suspect that's actually the kind of number people think is "too big for C." People also seem not to realize that the reason that Python library is so fast, is because it's actually wrapping C code. And that code is very often not doing some frighteningly low-level thing, but just doing ordinary stuff.
- samatman 7y ago
  The "steel man" version of this argument is that, if you're embarking on a new codebase which you have good reason to expect will grow to be large, have a very good reason to write it in C, or use a more appropriate language. There some reasons to do it, but fewer than there were when most of the projects you've name-checked were started. I'll skip the part where we review what the other options are, this is HN, we've all seen that thread before.
  - acqq 7y ago
    Knowing how some big software systems lived through more than a decade each, I'd claim that the less they used C++ and the more used C++ compilers to write a C-like code they were better. The worst parts of the project were exactly those that used the "cool" C++ features. C is much better for really long-lived projects than C++ is. C++ is a maintenance nightmare in comparison. Linux kernel is also a good and famous big long-lived project which I claim would have never even survived had it been written in C++. Linus seems to have believed the same.