Live data from Hacker News

What do you want to see in Learn C The Hard Way?

news.ycombinator.com

111–120 of 127 posts

Re: What do you want to see in Learn C The Hard Way?

#111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't know what UB or IDB is, you probably don't want to write a book pertaining to C, :)

Context specific. Could be intel debugger, could be undefined behavior, could be implementation defined behavior. I tested them on a group of about 15 C devs, mixture of embedded, linux, DSP, and other volken. Got the same guesses I made and a lot of question marks. It's easy to run your mouth but not actually contribute, you might consider your role in this process before commenting again.

So, contextually, we're referring to C here, wherein these terms refer to Implementation Defined Behaviour, and Undefined Behaviour. Allowing beginners to understand such terms early on would help, immensely.

Re: What do you want to see in Learn C The Hard Way?

#112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Context specific. Could be intel debugger, could be undefined behavior, could be implementation defined behavior. I tested them on a group of about 15 C devs, mixture of embedded, linux, DSP, and other volken. Got the same guesses I made and a lot of question marks. It's easy to run your mouth but not actually contribute, you might consider your role in this process before commenting again.

So, contextually, we're referring to C here, wherein these terms refer to Implementation Defined Behaviour, and Undefined Behaviour. Allowing beginners to understand such terms early on would help, immensely.

Sure, if they have a copy of the standard sitting on their desk.

Re: What do you want to see in Learn C The Hard Way?

#113

I want to learn how to do something internet related with C.

http://beej.us/guide/bgnet/

This is a horrible book, that is cluttered with numerous errors. If you want to learn about socket programming in C, you might find that UNP would do well to teach you, shown here http://goo.gl/uqCP8

Re: What do you want to see in Learn C The Hard Way?

#114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, contextually, we're referring to C here, wherein these terms refer to Implementation Defined Behaviour, and Undefined Behaviour. Allowing beginners to understand such terms early on would help, immensely.

Sure, if they have a copy of the standard sitting on their desk.

I can see that this book is going to be a great success, already. :)

Re: What do you want to see in Learn C The Hard Way?

#116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or as a compromise, start with simple, easy-to-read examples teaching basic principles. Give them datasets that will cause the program to blow up, and then explore both the causes and solutions to failure. Ideally, work back from the failures and encourage the reader to try out solutions that don't work so as to develop rigorous problem-solving skills. I've always felt that teaching 'don't do that, cause it's bad' st…

You've more or less described what I plan to do and why.

Presenting insecure source code in a beginner tutorial would actually be a great way of introducing an introductory software security book. Do the exploits on the into security book on the code examples from the beginner programming book.

Re: What do you want to see in Learn C The Hard Way?

#117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even better, make sure you explain function pointers well.

Some years ago, I ran across and saved off a copy of a some-dozen page reference, in PDF format, titled something along the lines of 'everything you (will) ever need to know about pointers (in C)'. It appeared to be quite well regarded. But, that laptop was ripped off and the particular file appears not to have made it into backups. Does this description happen to ring a bell? Any references?

Might it be this?: http://boredzo.org/pointers/

or possibly this (pdf warning): http://home.earthlink.net/~momotuk/pointers.pdf

Re: What do you want to see in Learn C The Hard Way?

#119

I think it would be cool to see any of the following: Learn Haskell the Hard Way Learn Erlang the Hard Way Learn Common Lisp the Hard Way Learn R the Hard Way Besides a "Learn X the Hard Way", I would actually like to see more people try to recreate the style of "The Little Scheme", which uses the socratic method to teach the learner. I think the socratic method requires the user to rack their brain a bit more, but r…

I picked C because I want people to learn C specifically to build the kinds of things C is good for these days. This isn't completionism, it's very purposeful I'd like to see the little Erlanger too actually.

How to Think Like a Computer Scientist.. A lecture in Programming in C..

http://prof.beuth-hochschule.de/fileadmin/user/scheffler/Leh...

Re: What do you want to see in Learn C The Hard Way?

#120
post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No I mean pitiless. The C channel I've observed for years is out and out brutal.

Mind if I ask which channel? I suspect my code deserves "brutal", at least on round one :)

##C on Freenode.

I accept no blame for your impending suicide.

Post reply on HN