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There was a "C Unleashed" book, a massive tome of 1000+ pages written by many famous programmers, many of them who where quite active in comp.lang.c, like Richa

There was a "C Unleashed" book, a massive tome of 1000+ pages written by many famous programmers, many of them who where quite active in comp.lang.c, like Richard Heathfield and CB Falconer, had quite insightful material in it. Any one remember the heyday of comp.lang.c? I wonder what goes on in there now.

mistertester 6y ago
Yes, usenet was huge for me back in the early 90s when I had questions on C programming. I would ask them on comp.programming.c and had some of the best programmers providing guidance. Of course they were strict with questions/discussions being specific to ANSI C.
beej71 6y ago
I bought that book ages ago. Good stuff. comp.lang.c still has a small group of knowledgeable regulars, but a lot of the "old guard" seems to have stepped away. And Usenet is a shadow of its former self, obviously. Reddit has more traffic nowadays.
deleted 6y ago
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bluedino 6y ago
#c on EFnet!
ben_pfaff 6y ago
I wasn't sure anyone but the authors remembered C Unleashed! I wrote the chapter on binary search trees and balanced trees. Comp.lang.c was important to me for many years. I've met 5 or so of the regulars at least once. The most famous comp.lang.c regular is probably Tim Hockin of the Kubernetes project.
- billfruit 6y ago
  Thanks very much! The code from the book proved very useful since C does not have a standard library of rich data structures.
- beej71 6y ago
  Ben Pfaff... There's a name I recognize from back then. :-)
  - jpcooper 6y ago
    Is it beej or bj?
    - beej71 6y ago
      One syllable, typically. But either works.
      - jpcooper 6y ago
        Thanks.
dmitryminkovsky 6y ago
There was a thread about that group a few months ago and this post in particular really stuck in my mind: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26127632 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26127632
- chubot 6y ago
  That's what I remember from comp.lang.c -- lawyer-ly obsession with ANSI C, rather than C as it's being used. That is an important distinction which I respect, but they should have had some kind of sister forum that's more practical. They denied that hardware exists, etc. Also, obsession with ANSI C, analogous to obsession with POSIX shell, is sort of "middlebrow" in the sense that the people who WRITE the spec need to go outside of it to create a new version of it. Good specs are derived from real usage.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]

mistertester 6y ago

Yes, usenet was huge for me back in the early 90s when I had questions on C programming. I would ask them on comp.programming.c and had some of the best programmers providing guidance. Of course they were strict with questions/discussions being specific to ANSI C.

beej71 6y ago

I bought that book ages ago. Good stuff. comp.lang.c still has a small group of knowledgeable regulars, but a lot of the "old guard" seems to have stepped away. And Usenet is a shadow of its former self, obviously. Reddit has more traffic nowadays.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

bluedino 6y ago

#c on EFnet!

ben_pfaff 6y ago

I wasn't sure anyone but the authors remembered C Unleashed! I wrote the chapter on binary search trees and balanced trees. Comp.lang.c was important to me for many years. I've met 5 or so of the regulars at least once. The most famous comp.lang.c regular is probably Tim Hockin of the Kubernetes project.

billfruit 6y ago
Thanks very much! The code from the book proved very useful since C does not have a standard library of rich data structures.
beej71 6y ago
Ben Pfaff... There's a name I recognize from back then. :-)
- jpcooper 6y ago
  Is it beej or bj?
  - beej71 6y ago
    One syllable, typically. But either works.
    - jpcooper 6y ago
      Thanks.

dmitryminkovsky 6y ago

There was a thread about that group a few months ago and this post in particular really stuck in my mind: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26127632 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26127632

chubot 6y ago
That's what I remember from comp.lang.c -- lawyer-ly obsession with ANSI C, rather than C as it's being used. That is an important distinction which I respect, but they should have had some kind of sister forum that's more practical. They denied that hardware exists, etc. Also, obsession with ANSI C, analogous to obsession with POSIX shell, is sort of "middlebrow" in the sense that the people who WRITE the spec need to go outside of it to create a new version of it. Good specs are derived from real usage.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]