4 ms·

All you need is K&R, honest. C is a very simple language. I learned it from K&R in the '80s in an office in a building in a corn field on a back road halfway

All you need is K&R, honest. C is a very simple language. I learned it from K&R in the '80s in an office in a building in a corn field on a back road halfway between Rockford, Il and Belvidire, Il. I went on to hire and assist eight others in acquiring it and then employed them to write, along with myself, a successful machine tool controller of serious sophistication employing a three way tightly coupled Mot 68010 MP system (using bus fault recovery to resolve address collisions) of my design. Not bragging, really, just being dramatic about what you can accomplish starting with just K&R.

DonGateley 13y ago
I'd like to add that this was not only before the public Internet but almost before the PC. :-)
rhizome31 13y ago
Your statement assumes that one already has access to a copy of K&R. For those who don't, there's no reason not to start with a cheaper, more recent book.
- danieldk 13y ago
  Except that there are so many K&R copies floating around that it's easy to get a cheap second-hand copy. E.g. my local Amazon (.de) sells copies starting at 15 Euro. K&R is really the definitive C book.
nzp 13y ago
Do note that Zed actually discusses in this book (at least in the online version) why it might not be the best idea to learn C from K&R today. His basic argument, IIRC, is that the examples in K&R are very bad when it comes to writing modern C. Sure, you'll learn the language in a formal sense, but K&R is hardly going to prepare you for the reality of C programming.
- DonGateley 13y ago
  I'm curious what reality he considers missing from K&R.
  - nzp 13y ago
    "Reality" was my word, I tried to condense the essence of his argument. That chapter is online[0] and as far as I see, only the "deconstructing" exercises part is missing. I've read it some time ago, so I'm not sure anymore if I would agree with everything he said because I don't remember every argument (but I don't feel competent enough about C to strongly comment either way anyway), but what he says in "Overall Critique Of Correctness" seems pretty reasonable. [0] http://c.learncodethehardway.org/book/krcritique.html http://c.learncodethehardway.org/book/krcritique.html

DonGateley 13y ago

I'd like to add that this was not only before the public Internet but almost before the PC. :-)

rhizome31 13y ago

Your statement assumes that one already has access to a copy of K&R. For those who don't, there's no reason not to start with a cheaper, more recent book.

danieldk 13y ago
Except that there are so many K&R copies floating around that it's easy to get a cheap second-hand copy. E.g. my local Amazon (.de) sells copies starting at 15 Euro. K&R is really the definitive C book.

nzp 13y ago

Do note that Zed actually discusses in this book (at least in the online version) why it might not be the best idea to learn C from K&R today. His basic argument, IIRC, is that the examples in K&R are very bad when it comes to writing modern C. Sure, you'll learn the language in a formal sense, but K&R is hardly going to prepare you for the reality of C programming.

DonGateley 13y ago
I'm curious what reality he considers missing from K&R.
- nzp 13y ago
  "Reality" was my word, I tried to condense the essence of his argument. That chapter is online[0] and as far as I see, only the "deconstructing" exercises part is missing. I've read it some time ago, so I'm not sure anymore if I would agree with everything he said because I don't remember every argument (but I don't feel competent enough about C to strongly comment either way anyway), but what he says in "Overall Critique Of Correctness" seems pretty reasonable. [0] http://c.learncodethehardway.org/book/krcritique.html http://c.learncodethehardway.org/book/krcritique.html