Thread: Kerninghan and Ritchie book, comments or reviews?

  1. #1
    CIS and business major
    Join Date
    Aug 2002
    Posts
    287

    Kerninghan and Ritchie book, comments or reviews?

    I've read this book many years ago, and have began reading it again. It's a great and concise book on the c programming language. Does anyone have any good feedback on this book?

  2. #2
    Registered User
    Join Date
    May 2010
    Posts
    4,633
    Well today I would say that that book is more of a book of the history of C. The C language has changed a great deal since that book was published and although it may give good insight into why some of the language constructs were "invented" it is a little out of date to use as a true reference for the language.


    Jim

  3. #3
    Nasal Demon Xupicor's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2010
    Location
    Poland
    Posts
    179
    Like I said in that other topic - personally, I'd choose a book that covers at least C99, if not also C11. "C Primer Plus" latest edition by Prata covers C99 and C11. "C Programming A Modern Approach" by King covers C99.

    K&R1 is interesting from historical point of view, but that's it. K&R2 was published in 1988, just before the ANSI C (1989) and ISO C (1990) standards were published. Admittedly, there were some touchups, but still... End of 2016 nears.

  4. #4
    Its hard... But im here swgh's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2005
    Location
    England
    Posts
    1,688
    It is a book every serious C programmer needs to have read or at least keep in their library. For many of the reasons above, and also that it was written by the language creators. The exercises are quite challenging too and if was completely honest I would say it's even better to read K&R(2) than Deitel's latest How to Program C book - which is just half C then two thirds of C++ and Java mashed together. *sigh* they used to be such a good company....
    Double Helix STL

Popular pages Recent additions subscribe to a feed

Similar Threads

  1. A new book on C - need reviews for sample
    By sanjit in forum C Programming
    Replies: 0
    Last Post: 12-02-2009, 08:00 PM
  2. Kernigan and Ritchie Book Question!
    By Matus in forum C Programming
    Replies: 10
    Last Post: 11-06-2008, 11:58 AM
  3. Newbie question: Kernighan-Ritchie C book- problem
    By plutonas in forum C Programming
    Replies: 2
    Last Post: 06-29-2005, 12:50 PM
  4. Compiler Reviews!
    By MrDoomMaster in forum C++ Programming
    Replies: 20
    Last Post: 12-11-2003, 01:29 PM

Tags for this Thread