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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

#21

Post by mkr-hn »

johnohara wrote: post #18
shadowfiend wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zed Shaw has made the book available for free. It's perfectly acceptable to point that out (indeed, it's linked from the udemy summary anyway). If you need more than the book, you can pay for the course. This is why it is labelled a "companion". There is nothing morally bankrupt about using the resource that has been graciously given away for free: it seems evident that Zed Shaw intended the book to be free, so use t…

If the video course were free, what would you be willing to pay for additional course materials? (i.e. the book, exercise solutions, exclusive live sessions, etc.) I'm not trying to be confrontational here. Online education/coursework/learning needs a pricing structure that makes sense. One that enables thousands of qualified instructors to participate without going broke in the process. I think I understand Zed's "f…

Disruption happens when someone demonstrates that the existing system is flawed by creating a better system. It will cost what it costs. You sound like a traditional publisher complaining that they can't charge $20 for schlock and abuse authors anymore.

Re: Learn C The Hard Way by Zed Shaw

#22

Post by jonknee »

johnohara wrote: post #18
shadowfiend wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zed Shaw has made the book available for free. It's perfectly acceptable to point that out (indeed, it's linked from the udemy summary anyway). If you need more than the book, you can pay for the course. This is why it is labelled a "companion". There is nothing morally bankrupt about using the resource that has been graciously given away for free: it seems evident that Zed Shaw intended the book to be free, so use t…

If the video course were free, what would you be willing to pay for additional course materials? (i.e. the book, exercise solutions, exclusive live sessions, etc.) I'm not trying to be confrontational here. Online education/coursework/learning needs a pricing structure that makes sense. One that enables thousands of qualified instructors to participate without going broke in the process. I think I understand Zed's "f…

> There is no disruption in education until there is parity between what Zed is able to make and what these people make.

I don't think Zed has trouble making $100,000 a year.

Re: Learn C The Hard Way by Zed Shaw

#23

Post by Sambdala »

johnohara wrote: post #18
shadowfiend wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zed Shaw has made the book available for free. It's perfectly acceptable to point that out (indeed, it's linked from the udemy summary anyway). If you need more than the book, you can pay for the course. This is why it is labelled a "companion". There is nothing morally bankrupt about using the resource that has been graciously given away for free: it seems evident that Zed Shaw intended the book to be free, so use t…

If the video course were free, what would you be willing to pay for additional course materials? (i.e. the book, exercise solutions, exclusive live sessions, etc.) I'm not trying to be confrontational here. Online education/coursework/learning needs a pricing structure that makes sense. One that enables thousands of qualified instructors to participate without going broke in the process. I think I understand Zed's "f…

What you're talking about is rebuilding the status quo in a different form.

Disruption is taking a $100,000/year teacher from teaching 30 students a year to teaching 30,000.

Re: Learn C The Hard Way by Zed Shaw

#24

Post by waffle_ss »

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 and recommended it to many people. After reading through it for just an hour I decided that it needs to be taken down from its pedestal and relegated to history rather than vaunted as state of the art.

This seems a bit hyperbolic to me... I just read K&R several years ago during school (could definitely use a re-read) but remember absolutely loving it for the combination of brevity and density of information conveyed. I'm not much of a C programmer though so I don't really know. Could a modern C programmer respond / elaborate?

[1]: http://c.learncodethehardway.org/book/learn-c-the-hard-waych...

Re: Learn C The Hard Way by Zed Shaw

#25

Post by mkr-hn »

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…

That page has examples and detailed explanations to support the criticism.

Re: Learn C The Hard Way by Zed Shaw

#26

Post by philsmith35 »

thdn wrote: post #11

I'm really considering to take this one, but I've would like to consider other alternatives, anyone knows other online c classes?

Harvard's CS50 (cs50.net) is an introductory computer science course that teaches C. Full course (lecture videos + problem sets) is available free online.

Re: Learn C The Hard Way by Zed Shaw

#28

Post by mtgx »

skrubly wrote: post #10

I'm excited - Learn Python the Hard Way completely jumpstarted me into what has become a large internal django site, and I refer back to it often. I really enjoy python, and I thank Zed for the straightforward aproach. So even though I love python I want to see if the same technique can introduce me again to C, a language I never felt comfortable with.

Learn Python the Hard Way is great, although I can't say I've read that many Python books, but I though his approach was a very good way to learn Python.

Re: Learn C The Hard Way by Zed Shaw

#29

Post by Jabbles »

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…

It's a bit like claiming memcpy() is bugged because it can crash your program. Well, true, it is good style to program defensively against memory corruptions, buffer overflows etc, and in that respect K&R may teach students bad habits.

I think it's a bit much to say that it should never have been written like that, as at the time people knew so much less about building complex projects, sources of error and defensive programming.

Keeping a book up to date takes a lot of effort, as I'm sure Zed (npi) appreciates. It's an old book, it has warts. As you stated, the density of information was what many people like about the book, so any replacement for it will have to replicate that. I don't think the criticism is unfounded though.

Re: Learn C The Hard Way by Zed Shaw

#30

Post by mkr-hn »

Jabbles wrote: post #29
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…

It's a bit like claiming memcpy() is bugged because it can crash your program. Well, true, it is good style to program defensively against memory corruptions, buffer overflows etc, and in that respect K&R may teach students bad habits. I think it's a bit much to say that it should never have been written like that, as at the time people knew so much less about building complex projects, sources of error and defensive…

I remember the gist of the critique being that the K&R book was perfect for the assumptions of its era, but can mislead people who aren't experienced enough to apply its lessons to the modern networked world
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