On Fri, Jun 22, 2012 at 07:55:18AM +0200, Otto Moerbeek wrote: > > Wel, reading an answers book does not really help. Arriving at the > answers yourself (wich requires effort indeed) is much better. > > A mentioned in the preface, K&R requires some knowledge about general > programming concepts and/or access to someone with experience. And it > requires real study, not just causal reading, as others have said > before. > > I'm probably biased, I learned C the hard way: I only had access to > the reference manual part of the 1st edition, a long long time ago, > must have been 1985. That reference manuals was about 30 pages > (somehat smaller than the reference manual in the 2nd ed). > > If you find K&R hard, still be sure to return to it after you feel > more confortable with C. C is a small language. K&R could not have > said it better in the preface to the 2nd ed: "C is not a big language, > and it is not well served by a big book". While it is a small book > they not only teach the language itself, but a lot about style, > standard idiom and general approach of writing C. > > As often, a small book might require more effort, but in the end is > more effective. > > -Otto >
I need to return to it again. I have got it and the reference manual packed away in storage since I was traveling a lot. I also found a really excellent book on pointers that was published in India (in English). I may have better luck this time as I have fiddled a little bit with assembly (just for the hell of it). I was very puzzled with the section on bits in C. I have started to use more complicated structures in Perl such as arrays of arrays and arrays of arrays of hashes, etc. I have gotten very close to finishing up on the programming I needed to do and I will need a new challenge to keep my free time filled (too much of that unfortunately). Chris Bennett
