On Sat, Mar 27, 2010 at 12:20:58AM +1100, Raphael Kraus wrote:
> Maybe not quite what you want to hear (and I know it's a text, not a
> course), but "The C Programming Language" by Kernighan and Richie has to
> be the definitive text.
Having a copy on my shelf, and having learnt C programming from it's
hallowed pages, I almost feel like a heretic for saying this, but here goes:
I don't think that K&R is a good book for learning C programming these days.
It was written in a simpler, gentler time, when the occasional buffer
overflow meant a segfault, not a pwning. There are plenty of examples in
there that are downright dangerous for a programmer who doesn't know the
full repercussions of their code. Also, a few of the idioms used aren't
really commonly used any more, having been superceded by better alternatives
over the years.
I don't know of any books that are a good, safer, replacement for it,
though.
Anyway, you shouldn't learn C any more. The less people who know it, the
higher consulting fees I can charge in 20 years to fix problems in legacy C
programs (see also: "The Cobol Effect").
- Matt
--
"You could wire up a dead rat to a DIMM socket and the PC BIOS memory test
would pass it just fine."
-- Ethan Benson
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