After arguing I read the preface to Zed's book. He wrote "LCTHW will not be for beginners, but for people who have at least read LPTHW or know one other program

After arguing I read the preface to Zed's book. He wrote "LCTHW will not be for beginners, but for people who have at least read LPTHW or know one other programming language." It seems LCTHW addresses the same audience as K&R after all.