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Learn C The Hard Way by Zed Shaw

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Re: Learn C The Hard Way by Zed Shaw

#91

Post by pacala »

jheriko wrote: post #56
Symmetry wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that the examples and explanations don't justify the level of castigation. Yes, you should always use strncpy() instead of strcpy() for instance, but that doesn't protect you from all bugs. The example of a safercopy() still relies on the assumption that the pointers given to it are valid, and that assumption is just as impossible prove as the assumption that copy()'s input strings are valid. Safercopy…

"Yes, you should always use strncpy() instead of strcpy() for instance, but that doesn't protect you from all bugs." I agree with your argument, but I don't enjoy encouraging programmers to use strncpy and co... the reason is simple, I don't want to encourage programmers to stop thinking about their code. Not having to think about something is great, when laziness is acceptable (RAD, web development etc.) but not in…

Human brain has very limited bandwidth. The more irrelevant bs it has to deal with, the less effective is in solving actual problems.

It's surprising that people otherwise living day and night dealing with bandwidth and capacity issues of software systems ignore their own limits on bandwidth and capacity and are willing to put up with random bs in the name of some macho industriousness.

Re: Learn C The Hard Way by Zed Shaw

#92

Post by bendemott »

rudiger wrote: post #52
bendemott wrote: post #12

I'm really glad to see that C can get in the spotlight even on HN.

Is it really surprising that C can get in the spotlight even on Hacker News? It's the quintessential hacker programming language!

I guess I wasn't feeling an optimist on the day I posted that... Good Point!

Re: Learn C The Hard Way by Zed Shaw

#93

Post by esbwhat »

zedshaw wrote: post #78
esbwhat wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are guest comments ever going to be an option? I don't really want to make a disqus account. I understand if not, but I figured I'd ask anyway.

No, I'm fully blocking and moderating comments. They are for serious students who need help, not drive-by netizens. In the past I had them open, but after the first two hits by HN or reddit I had to lock it down so that students wouldn't get thrashed.

FWIW i signed up to your udemy course, but I don't particularly feel like making a disqus account to also comment on the book, that's what's bothering me. I guess I will just abstain from commenting though, it's fair enough.

Re: Learn C The Hard Way by Zed Shaw

#94

Post by readme »

tjoff wrote: post #90
mhartl wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Glad to hear it. When people ask me about ePub/Mobi, I tell them that both formats are broken and that if I ever produce them it'll only be as a stupid marketing gimmick. What we really need is a format that works across different devices. If only there were a portable document format that solved this problem...

Yeah, because PDFs work really great on devices of different screen sizes. Also, the author should stop promote the epub version if he won't do it.

this, pdf does not look very good on an e-ink kindle.

Re: Learn C The Hard Way by Zed Shaw

#95

Post by readme »

waffle_ss wrote: post #24

I was wondering how this compares with or compliments K&R, when I came across [this section][1] of the book that seems to slap it in the face. Here's a section from the second paragraph: You see, "K&R C" is actually riddled with bugs and bad style. Its age is no excuse. These were bugs when they wrote the first printing, and the 42nd printing. I hadn't actually realized just how bad most of the code was in this book…

Learn C the hard way

You bet it will be hard to learn when you shun the best book ever written on the language, coauthored by the designer of the language!

Re: Learn C The Hard Way by Zed Shaw

#96

Post by baby »

zedshaw wrote: post #82
baby wrote: post #66

It's funny how, I started getting annoyed seeing people still learning to code on books while free tutorials were starting to pop up everywhere on internet. And now people are starting to charge for those tutorials. And I know people here in HN love Zed Shaw. But come on, there are hundreds of free great tutorials to learn C on internet.

My HTML version is still free, and if you tell me of the free C books I'll link to them here: http://programming-motherfucker.com/become.html

Right, started reading into it. Very good! Thanks.

Re: Learn C The Hard Way by Zed Shaw

#97

Post by zedshaw »

Tomis02 wrote: post #86
zedshaw wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IDEs are bad for you. It's much better to simply use a real programmer's editor that you can craft into being what you need. In fact, I can usually take vim plus cscope, exuberant ctags, and ack and demolish any code base you throw at me. Similar with emacs and other power editors. IDEs are usually useful if you're stuck using them to build GUIs or use specialized build tools they require.

Please dear wizard, here's a list of requirements for a fellow programmer that he can currently do with Visual Studio and wants to do the same with vim: - find in files (in vim, not in bash) - replace in files - rename symbol (uh-oh...) - quick open file in project (visual assist feature) - list of files in project (not in directory) - build system (something easy to use, not that make bullshit) - go to declaration/d…

I do all of this with just vim and some tools, and I do it with any language, any text, anywhere on any machine in and OS without having to buy anything from anyone and I can change how all of it works any time.

Re: Learn C The Hard Way by Zed Shaw

#98

Post by mhartl »

tjoff wrote: post #90
mhartl wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Glad to hear it. When people ask me about ePub/Mobi, I tell them that both formats are broken and that if I ever produce them it'll only be as a stupid marketing gimmick. What we really need is a format that works across different devices. If only there were a portable document format that solved this problem...

Yeah, because PDFs work really great on devices of different screen sizes. Also, the author should stop promote the epub version if he won't do it.

This is a limitation of the device, not the format. Why do people expect to be able to read heavily formatted books on every device they own? For books made up mostly of natural language text, this might be a reasonable expectation, but technical books have a different set of design constraints that make them ill-suited to general e-readers.

Re: Learn C The Hard Way by Zed Shaw

#99

Post by mhartl »

readme wrote: post #94
tjoff wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, because PDFs work really great on devices of different screen sizes. Also, the author should stop promote the epub version if he won't do it.

this, pdf does not look very good on an e-ink kindle.

What you mean is that heavily formatted books don't look good on Kindles. There's no general mapping from publication-quality documents (as supported by PDF) to crippled formats like ePub and Mobi. The problem is the device—or, rather, your expectations regarding the device—and not the format itself.

Re: Learn C The Hard Way by Zed Shaw

#100

Post by tjoff »

mhartl wrote: post #98
tjoff wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, because PDFs work really great on devices of different screen sizes. Also, the author should stop promote the epub version if he won't do it.

This is a limitation of the device, not the format. Why do people expect to be able to read heavily formatted books on every device they own? For books made up mostly of natural language text, this might be a reasonable expectation, but technical books have a different set of design constraints that make them ill-suited to general e-readers.

This is a limitation of the device, not the format.

No it's not. The kindle works fine for programming books, I'm currently reading Bjarne's "The C++ Programing Language" on my kindle, on PDF actually. The book itself lies on my bookshelf but why would I bother to open it?

The PDF isn't tailored for the kindle but it has wide enough margins so that when you crop it it works quite well on the kindle. The kindle is not the limitation nor the problem.

The problem is rather the crippled format that you get in a fullsize PDF. What exactly are you going to read it on? Print it out? (seriously?). On your monitor? Not really... On your tablet? You're joking right, reading a book on a glossy LCD?

Having a book as a PDF is quite useless for other than using it as a reference.

Now I don't know about any potential issues with epub/mobi, and honestly I couldn't care less in this case. The site mentioned (and still does) that an ePub will be available and if so I kind of expected an ePub version of it, in my eyes that was an incentive to take the course.

If that isn't going to happen an ~A5 PDF will work great too, since there actually exist devices that you can read it on comfortably.

And I kind of have a hard time to see why the book, as it is portrayed in the HTML-version wouldn't be able to work as an epub - but OK, if that's the case (or if epub truly is just a mess) that's surely not the case for a portable-device-friendly-PDF.

Also, it really cracks me up to see someone talk about broken formats and in the same post make an argument for PDF.

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