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I'm sorry, $60? I'm all in favor of fair remuneration for an excellent piece of work, but this is really too much. $30 would be much more fair. (And it doesn't matter if it's a physical book or e-book, the cost of printing nowadays is ca. $1 for each 100 pages.)
Amazon may ultimately discount this from the list price as they usually do but they are currently deprioritizing books due to the pandemic.
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Maybe the others here in the forum can tell me, why I should risk buying the pre-order (30% off), when I have no chance of reading a sample chapter yet. (I'm actually thinking of doing this, because I'm looking for a good second book on C after having worked through K&R before.) When I see that Brian W. Kernighan releases a book, it's an instant buy for me.
It is a risk to by the preorder sight unseen. If you are not familiar with author and his style you could end up feeling like you wasted that money. So until a preview chapter or similar is available I’ll through this link to Modern C, 2nd Ed by Gustedt. It has been well received and I thought Jens writing style was solid. I don’t know if it is the perfect second book to read on C, but it seems well paced and things…
Here is a newer article on Uninitialized Reads published by ACM https://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=3041020
Jens and I are both on the C Standards committee. I would definitely say that our books serve different markets.
Can any more experienced C developers give an opinion on the author/contents of this book? I'm a Python/Julia developer starting to learn C. I have K&R already, and Test Driven Development for Embedded C (Grenning). I did order 'Modern C' by Gustedt but the publisher never delivered to Waterstones so they had to cancel the order (about 6 months ago, book still unavailable from Waterstones as of today).
Can any more experienced C developers give an opinion on the author/contents of this book? I'm a Python/Julia developer starting to learn C. I have K&R already, and Test Driven Development for Embedded C (Grenning). I did order 'Modern C' by Gustedt but the publisher never delivered to Waterstones so they had to cancel the order (about 6 months ago, book still unavailable from Waterstones as of today).
Gustedt’s book is distributes by the author for free as a pdf if you are having trouble getting your print copy the digital version could hold you over. https://modernc.gforge.inria.fr/
I'm sorry, $60? I'm all in favor of fair remuneration for an excellent piece of work, but this is really too much. $30 would be much more fair. (And it doesn't matter if it's a physical book or e-book, the cost of printing nowadays is ca. $1 for each 100 pages.)
For 272 pages written by probably the best person to be writing modern C books, from a small publisher who is known for quality books, sixty dollars doesn't sound unreasonable at all
When our authors ask how long their book should be I always say: Long enough to cover the subject, short enough to keep it interesting. My company is called No Starch Press for a reason. Think of the word starch as a nicer way to say "BS", as in No BS Press.
There's a lot of work behind these pages as with all of our books. Unlike any publisher in this field we have several people who read and craft every line of every book as necessary, together with each author, before a book goes off to a copy editor. That's where most books start but not hours.
The real cost in creating a good book is not in the paper. It's in the time it takes to actually craft the words.
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For 272 pages written by probably the best person to be writing modern C books, from a small publisher who is known for quality books, sixty dollars doesn't sound unreasonable at all
Not to be rude to the author but what makes him the best person to be writing modern C books?
Resume-wise, I've been writing C code since 1985, and I've been an expert on the C Standards Committee (WG14) since 2004. I've written two prior books on C Programming including "Secure Coding in C and C++" and "The CERT C Coding Standard". I also teach Secure Coding in C for NCC Group https://www.nccgroup.trust/us/our-services/cyber-security/se... and I also taught these topics to Computer Science undergraduates and graduate students at CMU for over a decade. So I think I have a good balance of technical skills and communications skills, but you know, pick up a copy and judge for yourself.
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Nah, fuqit, I'll just buy it ;-) NoStarch never let me down so far, and paying USD 60 (or 40, or whatever) is such a marginal difference for a book you're going to spends dozens of hours on.
> for a book you're going to spends dozens of hours on. Is that a feature? I'm constantly frustrated by books that use many words to say little. Wasting hours on such books tends to be negative value, and I shouldn't buy them even for two cents..
The book is supposed to be around 270 pages, so verbosity probably won't be an issue.
I am right now working through "Python Crash Course" as an intermediate Python programmer. I very quickly read through chapters 1-8 so far and did all the exercises (rather simple ones), just to make sure that I'm not missing out anything on the basics. In the last couple of chapters, I actually picked up two or three pieces of knowledge I wasn't aware of. I spent around five to ten hours on this so far. This approach sounds terribly inefficient.
However, working through a beginner's book as an intermediate Python programmer, and only getting half a dozen of really new information out of it, gives me the confidence I need at this stage. So I don't consider it as a waste, but rather as an exercise in patience and repetition.
Why am I telling you all this? Because I think people overrate the monetary costs of books.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is a risk to by the preorder sight unseen. If you are not familiar with author and his style you could end up feeling like you wasted that money. So until a preview chapter or similar is available I’ll through this link to Modern C, 2nd Ed by Gustedt. It has been well received and I thought Jens writing style was solid. I don’t know if it is the perfect second book to read on C, but it seems well paced and things…
I'm checking with No Starch if we have plans to release a sample chapter of this book. There is a list of previous articles I've written including sample chapters from my previous books on Secure Codign in C and C++ and the CERT C Coding Standard here https://www.informit.com/authors/bio/3312572e-d904-45d5-afcd... Here is a newer article on Uninitialized Reads published by ACM https://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=3041…
If you think there is going to be a large difference in applicability and focus when comparing your ‘Effect C’ and Jens’ ‘Modern C’ I am kind of excited, not just to get your book, but also that even though some people would like to see C be relegated to the trash bin there is still some life left in a language I enjoy using.
Could someone who purchased the early release say how any chapters are currently available? Usually Nostarch bolds the the currently available chapters in the table of contents and this looks like all of them.
This book is just about to go to the printer. The book business has been turned upside down by COVID-19. We still offer free ebooks with print books purchased directly from our site but we don't know when we'll be able to ship to our customers directly again. We'll also be pushing out a promotional offer on this book, likely this coming week so you may want to wait for that. Just trying to keep things on track now th…
I ask because there's 3 or 4 titles on your "coming soon" page that I'm very interested in but I have limited funds for a purchase. Cheers.