Not sure what the point is in bashing a book thats known to be crap.
I didn't know. I actually have it on my shelf. My dad gave it to me when I was just starting C about a year ago. I guess this explains why some of the code didn't run.
C: The Complete Nonsense
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Re: C: The Complete Nonsense
#12Please remind those of us reading this thread who are less familiar with the reliable books on the subject what books are good books about C. I know about K & R, but what else do busy C programmers recommend? After edit: when you know a book is crap, do you say so in reviews on Amazon.com? That's helpful for people browsing books by subject.
I've heard that C Interfaces and Implementation is a good read after you've got an understanding of the language. I don't know any good encyclopedic references, though. I'm still learning the language myself.
I don't see what's wrong with saying that an educational book that has misinformation in it should be avoided on Amazon. With other things it might be more open to opinion, but if whole swathes of a reference book are filled with errors, I don't see what's wrong with writing a negative review.
Re: C: The Complete Nonsense
#13Please remind those of us reading this thread who are less familiar with the reliable books on the subject what books are good books about C. I know about K & R, but what else do busy C programmers recommend? After edit: when you know a book is crap, do you say so in reviews on Amazon.com? That's helpful for people browsing books by subject.
This thread has some good recommendations:
32 years on, K&R's "The C Programming Language" still stands alone
Re: C: The Complete Nonsense
#14Why the mean-spirited tone and expose? Why not just submit the errata as he sees it?
It sounds like there are so many flaws that it would not be worth anyone's time to note them all.
Re: C: The Complete Nonsense
#15Not sure what the point is in bashing a book thats known to be crap.
I didn't know. I actually have it on my shelf. My dad gave it to me when I was just starting C about a year ago. I guess this explains why some of the code didn't run.
I also have a copy, and was only shunned on IRC a few months ago for using it.
Re: C: The Complete Nonsense
#16Not sure what the point is in bashing a book thats known to be crap.
This guy's bashing (which I remember reading from years back) is part of what makes the book famously bad. At least to me.
I find the tone of the intro of the updated article very amusing, I guess it's the typical underdog story. He used to be some random guy on the Internet who liked C; now he's an experienced professional who spent almost a decade on the C committee. Awesome.
Re: C: The Complete Nonsense
#17Re: C: The Complete Nonsense
#18Not sure what the point is in bashing a book thats known to be crap.
There is nothing more annoying that when you are learning to program, and you get some error due to the examples.
You check everything, recheck names, and it still crashes.
You try to find out if you are using the compiler right, if you have the correct version, still crashes.
So you try to type it in another editor, maybe the editor is adding CRLF from dos, and the compiler is expecting Unix EOL, nope, still crashing.
Maybe there is a problem with the machine, so try a different machine, nope, still crashing.
It is enough to turn anyone off of computer science. When you are first starting out, there are so many things that already can go wrong, and so much to learn. This is just bad!
Re: C: The Complete Nonsense
#19Not sure what the point is in bashing a book thats known to be crap.
There is nothing more annoying that when you are learning to program, and you get some error due to the examples. You check everything, recheck names, and it still crashes. You try to find out if you are using the compiler right, if you have the correct version, still crashes. So you try to type it in another editor, maybe the editor is adding CRLF from dos, and the compiler is expecting Unix EOL, nope, still crashin…
I get the sense Herb hasn't moved with the times, and is pretty much stuck in the ways that served him before the internet, hence the lack of improvement.
How bad do you have to be to not continuously improve what you did before? Also, his examples to me scream that he hasn't or doesn't really write code for a living, or if he does, it's with a community of other fossils like him.
I can't respect any programming book writer who doesn't have some kind of automation in place to ensure all his code samples (1) compile, and (2) work as expected.
Basic stuff nowadays.
And even me, with not very much C cred, can see his C code is clearly not idiomatic for C these days, if you compare it to some well-written OSS C.
Re: C: The Complete Nonsense
#20Please remind those of us reading this thread who are less familiar with the reliable books on the subject what books are good books about C. I know about K & R, but what else do busy C programmers recommend? After edit: when you know a book is crap, do you say so in reviews on Amazon.com? That's helpful for people browsing books by subject.
I found Peter van der Linden's Expert C Programming to be excellent, and, as a bonus, fun to read (which you can't really say of K&R).