Thread: The exercises in K&R, did you get them all?

I was wondering of all who read the book "The C Programming Language", did you manage to get all of the exercises completed your first time through? Which were the ones that gave you the most trouble? Did you have any experience beforehand?

I ask because the book is my starting point, and trying some of them I had to postpone after several tries, not being able to find the angle to complete it.

There was one heinous exercise to make a vertical histogram that displays the number of words that I've planned out and failed at like 4-5 times. Is this normal or am I just a moron?

Thanks.

K&R isnt' really a book to teach you about programming; it's a book to teach you C. There are some great exercises in it so I do recommend persisting, but maybe you need another book to complement K&R and fill in gaps that the authors assume you know.

@ Hodor, I think I see what you are saying, k&r is like a dictionary, not a language course. I started reading it before anything else, and it compliments a lot of online tutorials that explain things like arrays, functions, pointers, ect without very specific examples. It is like being able to hear the language in short bursts, while still having a translation dictionary to fall back on for more specifics.


I was more wondering if there is ever a time when someone could look a problem in c that they hadn't seen before and intuit the solution using previous knowledge, or is there always trial and error?

Originally Posted by Alpo

I was more wondering if there is ever a time when someone could look a problem in c that they hadn't seen before and intuit the solution using previous knowledge, or is there always trial and error?

There isn't always trial and error... but getting to that point won't happen overnight, it requires practice.

Originally Posted by stahta01

I disagree on practice helping; I do think experience helps.
The problem with practice is too often you end up practicing making mistakes.

If you have no one already experienced reviewing your practice it could all be a waste of time.

Instead of doing a single problem/exercise over and over (which is the normal meaning of practice), I suggest looking at many different problems.
And, looking for ways to apply past solutions (with improvements) to solve the new and different problems.

Tim S.

I actually meant practice on a wide range of exercises and problems, not the same problem over and over; I.e. I meant practice problem solving and programming in general. Sorry for the confusion.