Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Book That Every Programmer Should Read

onlinehut.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

1–10 of 73 posts

Re: The Book That Every Programmer Should Read

#3

Post by javadyan »

DiabloD3 wrote: post #2

Came for K&R, left disappointed. I often recommend K&R, even to those who aren't primarily learning C.

I firmly believe that every programmer should be able to read and write C to some extent, and to learn it one must read K&R. So, yes, I agree that it is also one of the books that every programmer should read.

Re: The Book That Every Programmer Should Read

#4

Post by saulrh »

My parents bought me this book when I was in elementary school. I was fascinated with it; I read it and reread it until I understood everything in it. It took me something like eight months, but when I was done I had an instinctive grasp of computers and mathematics that many of my college classmates still don't have. Highly recommended.

Re: The Book That Every Programmer Should Read

#6

Post by Volpe »

javadyan wrote: post #3
DiabloD3 wrote: post #2

Came for K&R, left disappointed. I often recommend K&R, even to those who aren't primarily learning C.

I firmly believe that every programmer should be able to read and write C to some extent, and to learn it one must read K&R. So, yes, I agree that it is also one of the books that every programmer should read.

Curious why you think that? Every programmer?

What does learning C provide that other programming languages (majority of which have some basis in C) don't teach you?

Memory management (allocation, pointers, etc)? Pipes and buffers?

They are present in other languages, and one could argue with memory management why 'every' programmer must learn those techniques even if they are never really applicable to them.

I'm really trying to think back to my C days (I haven't done it in a long time) as to why it is so important to know? What is unique about it?

Re: The Book That Every Programmer Should Read

#8

Post by epscylonb »

Volpe wrote: post #6
javadyan wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I firmly believe that every programmer should be able to read and write C to some extent, and to learn it one must read K&R. So, yes, I agree that it is also one of the books that every programmer should read.

Curious why you think that? Every programmer? What does learning C provide that other programming languages (majority of which have some basis in C) don't teach you? Memory management (allocation, pointers, etc)? Pipes and buffers? They are present in other languages, and one could argue with memory management why 'every' programmer must learn those techniques even if they are never really applicable to them. I'm rea…

I think I am a better programmer for having used C.

C is interesting because like php it is very easy to end up with an unmanageable code base (but of course C is a lot more powerful than php).

I learnt a lot from good C code, the best C libs I have seen use a pseudo version of objects. They create a data structure to hold state and pass that as the first parameter to each function that can be used on it. Once I got my head around that I found I had a better understanding of the concept of object orientated programming.

Post reply on HN