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I really liked "The C Programming Language (second edition)" by Kernighan & Ritchie. It doesn't teach C99 and later features, but if you want to write portable

by jtvjan 6y ago

I really liked "The C Programming Language (second edition)" by Kernighan & Ritchie. It doesn't teach C99 and later features, but if you want to write portable code you're not using those anyway.

sillysaurusx 6y ago
K&R is a horrible way to learn C. It's the best way to make someone run in the other direction, though. It's like telling someone that SICP is the best way to learn Scheme. Maybe, but lots of people learn differently. Unfortunately I don't have good suggestions myself, but at least they won't feel bad if K&R isn't their cup of tea.
e12e 6y ago
From various discussions on Hn, I think the consensus is most people really like k&r as a technical book (it's concise, clear and a fun read) - but everyone working with C says its a terrible book for learning modern C. I tried to refresh my memory from previous threads, and I think the general trend has been to recommend (as seen in sibling comments): https://modernc.gforge.inria.fr/ https://modernc.gforge.inria.fr/ https://nostarch.com/Effective_C https://nostarch.com/Effective_C I've also seen the older: https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/21st-century-c/9781449344382/ https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/21st-century-c/97814493... Mentioned. There's also Architecture of Open Source Applications, which can help with starting to read some larger code bases, some of which are in C: http://aosabook.org/en/index.html http://aosabook.org/en/index.html And there's a general recommendation to go read the source code of the Redis cache/db. Finally i came across a mention of this short article on gdb (nb: mention of TUI text ui should probably have been in the top, not a foot note): https://www.recurse.com/blog/5-learning-c-with-gdb https://www.recurse.com/blog/5-learning-c-with-gdb I feel I'm missing a book that has come up often, but can't think of which one. I did like zed Shaws learn c the hard way, but I'm afraid it's getting a bit long in the tooth: https://learncodethehardway.org/c/ https://learncodethehardway.org/c/

by jtvjan 6y ago

I really liked "The C Programming Language (second edition)" by Kernighan & Ritchie. It doesn't teach C99 and later features, but if you want to write portable code you're not using those anyway.

sillysaurusx 6y ago

K&R is a horrible way to learn C. It's the best way to make someone run in the other direction, though. It's like telling someone that SICP is the best way to learn Scheme. Maybe, but lots of people learn differently. Unfortunately I don't have good suggestions myself, but at least they won't feel bad if K&R isn't their cup of tea.

e12e 6y ago

From various discussions on Hn, I think the consensus is most people really like k&r as a technical book (it's concise, clear and a fun read) - but everyone working with C says its a terrible book for learning modern C. I tried to refresh my memory from previous threads, and I think the general trend has been to recommend (as seen in sibling comments): https://modernc.gforge.inria.fr/ https://modernc.gforge.inria.fr/ https://nostarch.com/Effective_C https://nostarch.com/Effective_C I've also seen the older: https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/21st-century-c/9781449344382/ https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/21st-century-c/97814493... Mentioned. There's also Architecture of Open Source Applications, which can help with starting to read some larger code bases, some of which are in C: http://aosabook.org/en/index.html http://aosabook.org/en/index.html And there's a general recommendation to go read the source code of the Redis cache/db. Finally i came across a mention of this short article on gdb (nb: mention of TUI text ui should probably have been in the top, not a foot note): https://www.recurse.com/blog/5-learning-c-with-gdb https://www.recurse.com/blog/5-learning-c-with-gdb I feel I'm missing a book that has come up often, but can't think of which one. I did like zed Shaws learn c the hard way, but I'm afraid it's getting a bit long in the tooth: https://learncodethehardway.org/c/ https://learncodethehardway.org/c/