71–80 of 117 posts
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Curious what examples you felt were outdated.
They mention at one point that Java doesn't have a way to pass a function as a parameter to another function. That was added in Java 8 with lambdas. That's just one off the top of my head.
Kernighan is also a co-author of The Go Programming Language book, at least of the 1st edition.
Is that why Go forces K&R brackets instead of letting you choose?
I wish interviewing now was more about knowing the concepts in that book versus leetcode Brian Kernighan prob couldn’t pass a leetcode hard interview in this ridiculous new world
My last interview cycle I interviewed with some big names (Stripe, Square, Shopify, etc.) and was pleased that none of them asked any LeetCode style questions. All pretty practical programming stuff. Stripe had an interview where they had forked the Jackson Java library, introduced a bug, and then asked me to find and fix it. Pretty unique style, but much more applicable to the actual job of programming.
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Just ordered the true Gang of Four: * The C Programming Language * The UNIX Programming Environment * The Practice of Programming * The Elements of Programming Style I've read the C book before and also remember the writing to be excellent. I'm sure I'll pick up lots of programming wisdom but I'm also approaching this as a technical writer, figuring out what exactly makes Kernighan's books so good. I have a hunch tha…
No idea what your background is, but since you just bought four books, make sure you're spending more time reading and writing code than reading books. Some people fall into the theory trap and don't spend enough time making use of that theory.
This book is foundational; all Programmers (especially beginners) should read it. Like all Kernighan's books, the language is simple, concise and precise focusing on the foundations/essentials with no fluff and all in a little over 200 pages. Understand the principles from the examples shown here and then apply them in your own context. The beauty of K&P's books is that they do not overwhelm you with theory but show…
Just ordered the true Gang of Four: * The C Programming Language * The UNIX Programming Environment * The Practice of Programming * The Elements of Programming Style I've read the C book before and also remember the writing to be excellent. I'm sure I'll pick up lots of programming wisdom but I'm also approaching this as a technical writer, figuring out what exactly makes Kernighan's books so good. I have a hunch tha…
Tip: Many of these old books can be had for cheap as used copies on Amazon/Betterworldbooks etc.
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They mention at one point that Java doesn't have a way to pass a function as a parameter to another function. That was added in Java 8 with lambdas. That's just one off the top of my head.
Nit: it's still right. Lambdas are just functor sugar.
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No idea what your background is, but since you just bought four books, make sure you're spending more time reading and writing code than reading books. Some people fall into the theory trap and don't spend enough time making use of that theory.
Agreed. Reading books is great if it's replacing Twitter and Reddit time. It's not great if it's replacing coding time.
I am docs lead for https://pigweed.dev
I will probably also eventually post my findings to https://technicalwriting.dev
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We might have to add Elements of Programming Style to our backlog.
Well if you're interested, the Elements of Programming Style, to me, was interesting for two reasons. It presents plenty of timeless insights about programming, but it's also very interesting as a historical document; it argues against old-fashioned GOTO-based programming in favour of structured programming, and for-loops executing 0 times, for example. It has a list of rules of thumb at the end, which contains my fa…
It's a three way if statement that scrutinizes a number rather than a boolean, with branches for negative, zero and positive values.
I suggest you add Software Tools in Pascal to your list of books to podcast about. Also by Kernighan. I own a copy of that book and think it is good.
I suggest you add Software Tools in Pascal to your list of books to podcast about. Also by Kernighan. I own a copy of that book and think it is good.
You might get more than you bargained for on that topic. Kernighan and Plaugher had written "Software Tools" in RATFOR. Then they wrote "Software Tools in Pascal". And then, in direct response to the experience of writing that, Kernighan wrote a paper titled "Why Pascal Is Not My Favorite Programming Language". (Because writing in Pascal should have been way easier than writing in RATFOR, and it wasn't, and Kernighan…
Here is the pdf of Brian Kernighan's paper on RATFOR - http://www.econ.uiuc.edu/~roger/research/repro/ratfor.pdf