Re: Best way to learn C?

From	Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk>
Newsgroups	comp.lang.c
Subject	Re: Best way to learn C?
Date	2021-12-19 20:51 +0000
Organization	A noiseless patient Spider
Message-ID	<87lf0gnwro.fsf@bsb.me.uk> (permalink)
References	<spkh0p$gll$1@dont-email.me> <713a16cf-d9e0-4056-a70e-e8c7b93727den@googlegroups.com> <8735mopqm9.fsf@bsb.me.uk> <spns2v$vsl$1@gioia.aioe.org>

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Manfred <noname@add.invalid> writes:

> On 12/19/2021 4:21 PM, Ben Bacarisse wrote:
>> luser droog <luser.droog@gmail.com> writes:
>> 
>>> On Saturday, December 18, 2021 at 5:35:01 AM UTC-6, Torbjörn Svensson Diaz wrote:
>>>> What is the best way to learn C? Which are the best tutorials and
>>>> which are the best books? Can someone please give me a little
>>>> guidance?
>>>>
>>>
>>> Others have given good book suggestions. For the best /tutorial/, I'd
>>> recommend Brian Kernighan's original tutorial paper. It's a little
>>> outdated and quirky. But it's well written and *short*. It gives a
>>> reasonably complete overview that should make a more modern text
>>> easier to follow.
>>>
>>>    https://www.lysator.liu.se/c/bwk-tutor.html
>> No, I can't agree.  At time, maybe, but not now.  Amongst the big
>> problems are: no function prototypes, implicit int, old-style function
>> definitions, the old =<op> syntax, unique structure tags (because they
>> are all interchangeable), no initialisation of structures nor of local
>> variables and '\0' as an end-of-file marker.
>> But then there's almost no use of library functions, no unsigned types,
>> no typedef, no long, no void, no const and all local declarations have
>> to be at the start of a function.  Some of these would, perhaps, be
>> deliberately omitted from a first tutorial, but I would not students to
>> learn that C has only four types: char, int float and double.
>> I suppose it's still possible that this is the best tutorial but that
>> says more about the others than it does about the suitability of this
>> one (there are a lot of awful ones out there).
>> 
>
> In short, along the lines of the same reasoning, could one say that
> K&R2 is still among the best choices available?

K&R2 is among the best introductions, but I don't see much of the same
reasoning.  For one thing, my recollection is that there are other good
books out there, so it is not faute de mieux.  For another, you won't
learn much from K&R2 that a modern C compiler will throw out.  You'll
miss out on a few things, but you'd have a reasonable grounding.

(And what's going on with blanks lines?  I keep replying to posts
quoting me, where all the blank lines I put in have gone.  I thought it
might be Google -- always a good bet is Usenet posts are messed up --
but you don't post through Google.)

-- 
Ben.

Thread

Best way to learn C? Torbjörn Svensson Diaz <torbjorn.svensson.diaz@gmail.com> - 2021-12-18 12:34 +0100
  Re: Best way to learn C? Öö Tiib <ootiib@hot.ee> - 2021-12-18 04:25 -0800
    Re: Best way to learn C? Torbjörn Svensson Diaz <torbjorn.svensson.diaz@gmail.com> - 2021-12-18 13:49 +0100
      Re: Best way to learn C? Öö Tiib <ootiib@hot.ee> - 2021-12-18 06:53 -0800
  Re: Best way to learn C? Bonita Montero <Bonita.Montero@gmail.com> - 2021-12-18 13:26 +0100
    Re: Best way to learn C? Torbjörn Svensson Diaz <torbjorn.svensson.diaz@gmail.com> - 2021-12-18 13:49 +0100
      Re: Best way to learn C? Bonita Montero <Bonita.Montero@gmail.com> - 2021-12-18 15:26 +0100
        Re: Best way to learn C? Guillaume <message@bottle.org> - 2021-12-19 19:11 +0100
          Re: Best way to learn C? Bonita Montero <Bonita.Montero@gmail.com> - 2021-12-19 19:42 +0100
          Re: Best way to learn C? Jim Jackson <jj@franjam.org.uk> - 2021-12-20 11:33 +0000
      Re: Best way to learn C? Manfred <noname@add.invalid> - 2021-12-18 17:54 +0100
        Re: Best way to learn C? Bonita Montero <Bonita.Montero@gmail.com> - 2021-12-18 18:32 +0100
          Re: Best way to learn C? Bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2021-12-18 18:22 +0000
            Re: Best way to learn C? Bonita Montero <Bonita.Montero@gmail.com> - 2021-12-18 19:43 +0100
            Re: Best way to learn C? Malcolm McLean <malcolm.arthur.mclean@gmail.com> - 2021-12-19 02:59 -0800
    Re: Best way to learn C? Keith Thompson <Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com> - 2021-12-18 22:19 -0800
      Re: Best way to learn C? Bonita Montero <Bonita.Montero@gmail.com> - 2021-12-19 10:14 +0100
        Re: Best way to learn C? David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2021-12-19 17:21 +0100
      Re: Best way to learn C? David LaRue <huey.dll@tampabay.rr.com> - 2021-12-19 09:20 +0000
        Re: Best way to learn C? David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2021-12-19 22:54 +0100
  Re: Best way to learn C? Torbjörn Svensson Diaz <torbjorn.svensson.diaz@gmail.com> - 2021-12-18 13:49 +0100
  Re: Best way to learn C? Lew Pitcher <lew.pitcher@digitalfreehold.ca> - 2021-12-18 16:17 +0000
  Re: Best way to learn C? Malcolm McLean <malcolm.arthur.mclean@gmail.com> - 2021-12-19 02:55 -0800
  Re: Best way to learn C? luser droog <luser.droog@gmail.com> - 2021-12-19 06:18 -0800
    Re: Best way to learn C? Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2021-12-19 15:21 +0000
      Re: Best way to learn C? Manfred <noname@add.invalid> - 2021-12-19 19:02 +0100
        Re: Best way to learn C? Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2021-12-19 20:51 +0000
          Re: Best way to learn C? Manfred <noname@add.invalid> - 2021-12-19 22:31 +0100
            Re: Best way to learn C? Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2021-12-19 22:02 +0000
            Re: Best way to learn C? Keith Thompson <Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com> - 2021-12-19 16:10 -0800
            Re: Best way to learn C? scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2021-12-20 15:47 +0000
  Re: Best way to learn C? John Forkosh <forkosh@panix.com> - 2021-12-20 08:50 +0000
  Re: Best way to learn C? Philipp Klaus Krause <pkk@spth.de> - 2021-12-20 22:44 +0100

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