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This is so strange : the original Kernighan and Ritchie The C Programming Language book from the early 1980s was a couple hours front to back read, and you're d
by jjtheblunt 4y ago
This is so strange : the original Kernighan and Ritchie The C Programming Language book from the early 1980s was a couple hours front to back read, and you're done, and you're up and programming. (Or you're not a computer person at heart perhaps?)
The followup edition I think had the C89 draft ANSI standard, and was the beginning of the way way way more wordy era.
That the idea of "learn enough C to survive" is a concern for anyone seems to mean the concise clarity of the original K&R book is long lost?
- AlotOfReading 4y agoThe state of modern C is so far removed from K&R that memorizing it probably counts as "just enough to survive". Someone that doesn't have a good grasp of UB and knowledge of the compiler/machine would be slightly terrifying to let loose in a C codebase.
- jjtheblunt 4y agoI've actually seen that happen, and it was not good, as you predict!
- boppo1 4y agoI read ANSI K&R, is it yhat much bigger/more complex? Took me about 4 days to read iirc (without doing exercises).
- jjtheblunt 4y agoi think 228 pages for K&R 1st edition (1978) which had a long appendix, and 288 for 1988 K&R 2nd edition with draft ANSI standard. Interestingly, the description from K&R for the 1988 version (I had both btw) said they tried to maintain the succinct clarity of the 1st edition. :)