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Origin of the story that K&R style was chosen to save paper

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  Origin of the story that K&R style was chosen to save paper Paul Sinnett <paul.sinnett@gmail.com> - 2012-11-27 14:13 -0800
    Re: Origin of the story that K&R style was chosen to save paper Keith Thompson <kst-u@mib.org> - 2012-11-27 17:42 -0800
      Re: Origin of the story that K&R style was chosen to save paper Ian Collins <ian-news@hotmail.com> - 2012-11-28 14:51 +1300
      Re: Origin of the story that K&R style was chosen to save paper pete <pfiland@mindspring.com> - 2012-11-28 00:36 -0500
    Re: Origin of the story that K&R style was chosen to save paper Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2012-11-28 02:02 +0000
      Re: Origin of the story that K&R style was chosen to save paper Cal Dershowitz <cal@example.invalid> - 2012-11-27 20:30 -0700
        Re: Origin of the story that K&R style was chosen to save paper Cal Dershowitz <cal@example.invalid> - 2012-11-27 22:06 -0700
          Re: Origin of the story that K&R style was chosen to save paper Rosario1903 <Rosario@invalid.invalid> - 2012-11-28 08:58 +0100
            Re: Origin of the story that K&R style was chosen to save paper Cal Dershowitz <cal@example.invalid> - 2012-11-28 19:19 -0700
        Re: Origin of the story that K&R style was chosen to save paper Rui Maciel <rui.maciel@gmail.com> - 2012-11-28 11:10 +0000
          Re: Origin of the story that K&R style was chosen to save paper glen herrmannsfeldt <gah@ugcs.caltech.edu> - 2012-11-28 18:19 +0000
            Re: Origin of the story that K&R style was chosen to save paper Robert Wessel <robertwessel2@yahoo.com> - 2012-11-28 13:14 -0600
              Re: Origin of the story that K&R style was chosen to save paper Robert Wessel <robertwessel2@yahoo.com> - 2012-11-28 13:26 -0600
                Re: Origin of the story that K&R style was chosen to save paper Robert Wessel <robertwessel2@yahoo.com> - 2012-11-28 13:30 -0600
                  Re: Origin of the story that K&R style was chosen to save paper "BartC" <bc@freeuk.com> - 2012-11-28 19:38 +0000
                    Re: Origin of the story that K&R style was chosen to save paper Anders Wegge Keller <wegge@wegge.dk> - 2012-11-28 21:03 +0100
                      Re: Origin of the story that K&R style was chosen to save paper Robert Wessel <robertwessel2@yahoo.com> - 2012-11-28 14:27 -0600
              Re: Origin of the story that K&R style was chosen to save paper glen herrmannsfeldt <gah@ugcs.caltech.edu> - 2012-11-28 21:50 +0000
    Re: Origin of the story that K&R style was chosen to save paper Rui Maciel <rui.maciel@gmail.com> - 2012-11-28 10:56 +0000
      Re: Origin of the story that K&R style was chosen to save paper Paul Sinnett <paul.sinnett@gmail.com> - 2012-11-28 03:55 -0800
        Re: Origin of the story that K&R style was chosen to save paper Jorgen Grahn <grahn+nntp@snipabacken.se> - 2012-11-28 21:37 +0000
      Re: Origin of the story that K&R style was chosen to save paper Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2012-11-28 14:19 +0000
      Re: Origin of the story that K&R style was chosen to save paper Tim Rentsch <txr@alumni.caltech.edu> - 2012-12-17 03:45 -0800
        Re: Origin of the story that K&R style was chosen to save paper Keith Thompson <kst-u@mib.org> - 2012-12-17 12:05 -0800
          Re: Origin of the story that K&R style was chosen to save paper Tim Rentsch <txr@alumni.caltech.edu> - 2012-12-20 10:06 -0800
            Re: Origin of the story that K&R style was chosen to save paper Keith Thompson <kst-u@mib.org> - 2012-12-20 14:26 -0800
              Re: Origin of the story that K&R style was chosen to save paper Tim Rentsch <txr@alumni.caltech.edu> - 2012-12-21 09:29 -0800
    Re: Origin of the story that K&R style was chosen to save paper Tim Rentsch <txr@alumni.caltech.edu> - 2012-12-17 03:39 -0800
      Re: Origin of the story that K&R style was chosen to save paper Paul Sinnett <paul.sinnett@gmail.com> - 2012-12-25 21:18 -0800

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#28698 — Origin of the story that K&R style was chosen to save paper

I've been told by several people that the reason the K&R style was chosen for the C Programming Language book was because the publisher wanted to reduce the length of the book. But I've been unable to find any authoritative source for the story. Does anyone know where this idea comes from? An interview maybe?

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#28705

Paul Sinnett <paul.sinnett@gmail.com> writes:
> I've been told by several people that the reason the K&R style was
> chosen for the C Programming Language book was because the publisher
> wanted to reduce the length of the book. But I've been unable to find
> any authoritative source for the story. Does anyone know where this
> idea comes from? An interview maybe?

A bit of Googling found a discussion at
<http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-891532.html> which
includees this comment from a bruce89, posted August 16th, 2008:

    I wonder if people know there's a note in K&R which says "we're
    doing it like this to save paper".

I don't know whether this is true; I don't remember seeing such a note.

-- 
Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith) kst-u@mib.org  <http://www.ghoti.net/~kst>
    Will write code for food.
"We must do something.  This is something.  Therefore, we must do this."
    -- Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn, "Yes Minister"

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#28706

Keith Thompson wrote:
> Paul Sinnett <paul.sinnett@gmail.com> writes:
>> I've been told by several people that the reason the K&R style was
>> chosen for the C Programming Language book was because the publisher
>> wanted to reduce the length of the book. But I've been unable to find
>> any authoritative source for the story. Does anyone know where this
>> idea comes from? An interview maybe?
>
> A bit of Googling found a discussion at
> <http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-891532.html> which
> includees this comment from a bruce89, posted August 16th, 2008:
>
>      I wonder if people know there's a note in K&R which says "we're
>      doing it like this to save paper".
>
> I don't know whether this is true; I don't remember seeing such a note.

The only style note I remember is "we have chosen one of several popular 
styles" in K&R 1.

-- 
Ian Collins

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#28718

Keith Thompson wrote:
> 
> Paul Sinnett <paul.sinnett@gmail.com> writes:
> > I've been told by several people that the reason the K&R style was
> > chosen for the C Programming Language book was because the publisher
> > wanted to reduce the length of the book.
> > But I've been unable to find
> > any authoritative source for the story. Does anyone know where this
> > idea comes from? An interview maybe?
> 
> A bit of Googling found a discussion at
> <http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-891532.html> which
> includees this comment from a bruce89, posted August 16th, 2008:
> 
>     I wonder if people know there's a note in K&R which says "we're
>     doing it like this to save paper".
> 
> I don't know whether this is true;
> I don't remember seeing such a note.

It is not true.
The text of K&R does not contain the word "paper".

-- 
pete

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#28707

Paul Sinnett <paul.sinnett@gmail.com> writes:

> I've been told by several people that the reason the K&R style was
> chosen for the C Programming Language book was because the publisher
> wanted to reduce the length of the book. But I've been unable to find
> any authoritative source for the story. Does anyone know where this
> idea comes from? An interview maybe?

I don't think there's anything to this story.  For one thing, the same
style was widely used for programs in B long before C and the K&R book.

-- 
Ben.

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#28712

On 11/27/2012 07:02 PM, Ben Bacarisse wrote:
> Paul Sinnett <paul.sinnett@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> I've been told by several people that the reason the K&R style was
>> chosen for the C Programming Language book was because the publisher
>> wanted to reduce the length of the book. But I've been unable to find
>> any authoritative source for the story. Does anyone know where this
>> idea comes from? An interview maybe?
>
> I don't think there's anything to this story.  For one thing, the same
> style was widely used for programs in B long before C and the K&R book.
>

If saving paper were a priority, no one would call sarah palin an author.

If there is any truth to it re K&R2, I'll contend it was in the table of 
printf specifiers.
-- 
Cal

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#28715

On 11/27/2012 08:30 PM, Cal Dershowitz wrote:
> On 11/27/2012 07:02 PM, Ben Bacarisse wrote:
>> Paul Sinnett <paul.sinnett@gmail.com> writes:
>>
>>> I've been told by several people that the reason the K&R style was
>>> chosen for the C Programming Language book was because the publisher
>>> wanted to reduce the length of the book. But I've been unable to find
>>> any authoritative source for the story. Does anyone know where this
>>> idea comes from? An interview maybe?
>>
>> I don't think there's anything to this story.  For one thing, the same
>> style was widely used for programs in B long before C and the K&R book.
>>
>
> If saving paper were a priority, no one would call sarah palin an author.
>
> If there is any truth to it re K&R2, I'll contend it was in the table of
> printf specifiers.

IIRC, it doesn't even exist.  Refer to sprintf.
-- 
Cal

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#28723

On Tue, 27 Nov 2012 22:06:37 -0700, Cal Dershowitz wrote:
>On 11/27/2012 08:30 PM, Cal Dershowitz wrote:
>> On 11/27/2012 07:02 PM, Ben Bacarisse wrote:
>>> Paul Sinnett writes:

>> If there is any truth to it re K&R2, I'll contend it was in the table of
>> printf specifiers.
>
>IIRC, it doesn't even exist.  Refer to sprintf.

it is fprintf()...

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#28769

On 11/28/2012 12:58 AM, Rosario1903 wrote:
> On Tue, 27 Nov 2012 22:06:37 -0700, Cal Dershowitz wrote:
>> On 11/27/2012 08:30 PM, Cal Dershowitz wrote:
>>> On 11/27/2012 07:02 PM, Ben Bacarisse wrote:
>>>> Paul Sinnett writes:
>
>>> If there is any truth to it re K&R2, I'll contend it was in the table of
>>> printf specifiers.
>>
>> IIRC, it doesn't even exist.  Refer to sprintf.
>
> it is fprintf()...
>

Right, I could never keep them all straight until I could look them up 
at dinkumware.
-- 
Cal

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#28726

Cal Dershowitz wrote:

> If saving paper were a priority, no one would call sarah palin an author.

You'd be surprised with what this desire to save paper forces some editors 
to do.  For example, I was told that the style adopted for a table included 
in the EN 1993-1 standard, which sacrificed pretty much any readability, was 
due to economy reasons: someone wanted to reduce publishing costs by 
avoiding having to print one or two extra pages on a 100-page document.


Rui Maciel

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#28739

Rui Maciel <rui.maciel@gmail.com> wrote:
> Cal Dershowitz wrote:
 
>> If saving paper were a priority, no one would call sarah palin an author.
 
> You'd be surprised with what this desire to save paper forces some editors 
> to do.  For example, I was told that the style adopted for a table included 
> in the EN 1993-1 standard, which sacrificed pretty much any readability, was 
> due to economy reasons: someone wanted to reduce publishing costs by 
> avoiding having to print one or two extra pages on a 100-page document.

I don't know specific numbers, but printing likes certain page counts
better than others. It might be that the choice was 100 or 120 pages.

If you look at a book from the end, you will see that pages come in
little groups, making it hard to add just one or two pages.

And you know we all want to keep the cost of standards documents down.

-- glen

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#28742

On Wed, 28 Nov 2012 18:19:44 +0000 (UTC), glen herrmannsfeldt
<gah@ugcs.caltech.edu> wrote:

>Rui Maciel <rui.maciel@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Cal Dershowitz wrote:
> 
>>> If saving paper were a priority, no one would call sarah palin an author.
> 
>> You'd be surprised with what this desire to save paper forces some editors 
>> to do.  For example, I was told that the style adopted for a table included 
>> in the EN 1993-1 standard, which sacrificed pretty much any readability, was 
>> due to economy reasons: someone wanted to reduce publishing costs by 
>> avoiding having to print one or two extra pages on a 100-page document.
>
>I don't know specific numbers, but printing likes certain page counts
>better than others. It might be that the choice was 100 or 120 pages.
>
>If you look at a book from the end, you will see that pages come in
>little groups, making it hard to add just one or two pages.
>
>And you know we all want to keep the cost of standards documents down.



OT digression into book printing:

When printing book-style documents, the sheet physically printed (a
"press sheet") most commonly has 32 pages printed on it (16 on each
side), arranged in such a way that three foldings produce a section (a
"signature") of book (16 sheets, 32 consecutive pages), in the correct
order and orientation and ready to bind.  So the usual increment is 32
pages.

Reasonably common are 8, 16 and 24 page press sheets, and 64 page
sheets happen on occasion.  Sometimes a printer will put one smaller
sheet at the end of a book (usually only with books mainly printed on
32 and 64 page press sheets), but that usually only happens on rather
large press runs due to the extra setup work.

And as you might expect, the cost is typically based on the number of
press sheets.

But the choice would unlikely be 100 vs. 120 pages, although 96 vs.
112 or 128 is certainly plausible. 

And yes, I've definitely seen people work to get under one of those
boundaries.

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#28743

On Wed, 28 Nov 2012 13:14:40 -0600, Robert Wessel
<robertwessel2@yahoo.com> wrote:

>On Wed, 28 Nov 2012 18:19:44 +0000 (UTC), glen herrmannsfeldt
><gah@ugcs.caltech.edu> wrote:
>
>>Rui Maciel <rui.maciel@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Cal Dershowitz wrote:
>> 
>>>> If saving paper were a priority, no one would call sarah palin an author.
>> 
>>> You'd be surprised with what this desire to save paper forces some editors 
>>> to do.  For example, I was told that the style adopted for a table included 
>>> in the EN 1993-1 standard, which sacrificed pretty much any readability, was 
>>> due to economy reasons: someone wanted to reduce publishing costs by 
>>> avoiding having to print one or two extra pages on a 100-page document.
>>
>>I don't know specific numbers, but printing likes certain page counts
>>better than others. It might be that the choice was 100 or 120 pages.
>>
>>If you look at a book from the end, you will see that pages come in
>>little groups, making it hard to add just one or two pages.
>>
>>And you know we all want to keep the cost of standards documents down.
>
>
>
>OT digression into book printing:
>
>When printing book-style documents, the sheet physically printed (a
>"press sheet") most commonly has 32 pages printed on it (16 on each
>side), arranged in such a way that three foldings produce a section (a
>"signature") of book (16 sheets, 32 consecutive pages), in the correct
>order and orientation and ready to bind.  So the usual increment is 32
>pages.
>
>Reasonably common are 8, 16 and 24 page press sheets, and 64 page
>sheets happen on occasion.  Sometimes a printer will put one smaller
>sheet at the end of a book (usually only with books mainly printed on
>32 and 64 page press sheets), but that usually only happens on rather
>large press runs due to the extra setup work.
>
>And as you might expect, the cost is typically based on the number of
>press sheets.
>
>But the choice would unlikely be 100 vs. 120 pages, although 96 vs.
>112 or 128 is certainly plausible. 
>
>And yes, I've definitely seen people work to get under one of those
>boundaries.


And that's also why you often have pages with special attributes
(color or photographs, for example) in clumps throughout a book - the
printing of that particular signature is done in the special way (four
color process vs. B&W, on glossy paper for plates, etc.), so all the
pages printed on the press sheet (that gets folded into the signature
in question) have the same printing attributes.  And those signatures
have the same by-32 (or 8/16/24/64*) page rule.  So if you sometimes
wonder about image selections in, say, a history book, the reason a
picture of third cousin of the archduke was included, is that there
was an empty page in the signature to fill.

And note that such special signatures are fairly expensive, so there's
always extra effort to use the efficiently.


*I don't think you can do x64 plate sheets, I've never heard of such,
and x64 sheets tend to be thin stock anyway.

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#28744

On Wed, 28 Nov 2012 13:26:03 -0600, Robert Wessel
<robertwessel2@yahoo.com> wrote:

>On Wed, 28 Nov 2012 13:14:40 -0600, Robert Wessel
><robertwessel2@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>>On Wed, 28 Nov 2012 18:19:44 +0000 (UTC), glen herrmannsfeldt
>><gah@ugcs.caltech.edu> wrote:
>>
>>>Rui Maciel <rui.maciel@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> Cal Dershowitz wrote:
>>> 
>>>>> If saving paper were a priority, no one would call sarah palin an author.
>>> 
>>>> You'd be surprised with what this desire to save paper forces some editors 
>>>> to do.  For example, I was told that the style adopted for a table included 
>>>> in the EN 1993-1 standard, which sacrificed pretty much any readability, was 
>>>> due to economy reasons: someone wanted to reduce publishing costs by 
>>>> avoiding having to print one or two extra pages on a 100-page document.
>>>
>>>I don't know specific numbers, but printing likes certain page counts
>>>better than others. It might be that the choice was 100 or 120 pages.
>>>
>>>If you look at a book from the end, you will see that pages come in
>>>little groups, making it hard to add just one or two pages.
>>>
>>>And you know we all want to keep the cost of standards documents down.
>>
>>
>>
>>OT digression into book printing:
>>
>>When printing book-style documents, the sheet physically printed (a
>>"press sheet") most commonly has 32 pages printed on it (16 on each
>>side), arranged in such a way that three foldings produce a section (a
>>"signature") of book (16 sheets, 32 consecutive pages), in the correct
>>order and orientation and ready to bind.  So the usual increment is 32
>>pages.
>>
>>Reasonably common are 8, 16 and 24 page press sheets, and 64 page
>>sheets happen on occasion.  Sometimes a printer will put one smaller
>>sheet at the end of a book (usually only with books mainly printed on
>>32 and 64 page press sheets), but that usually only happens on rather
>>large press runs due to the extra setup work.
>>
>>And as you might expect, the cost is typically based on the number of
>>press sheets.
>>
>>But the choice would unlikely be 100 vs. 120 pages, although 96 vs.
>>112 or 128 is certainly plausible. 
>>
>>And yes, I've definitely seen people work to get under one of those
>>boundaries.
>
>
>And that's also why you often have pages with special attributes
>(color or photographs, for example) in clumps throughout a book - the
>printing of that particular signature is done in the special way (four
>color process vs. B&W, on glossy paper for plates, etc.), so all the
>pages printed on the press sheet (that gets folded into the signature
>in question) have the same printing attributes.  And those signatures
>have the same by-32 (or 8/16/24/64*) page rule.  So if you sometimes
>wonder about image selections in, say, a history book, the reason a
>picture of third cousin of the archduke was included, is that there
>was an empty page in the signature to fill.
>
>And note that such special signatures are fairly expensive, so there's
>always extra effort to use the efficiently.
>
>
>*I don't think you can do x64 plate sheets, I've never heard of such,
>and x64 sheets tend to be thin stock anyway.


And, of course, a x32 press sheet requires *four* folds, not three.

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#28746

"Robert Wessel" <robertwessel2@yahoo.com> wrote in message 
news:qfpcb8d2k3g8h3n0qbr3la5kfh15uepiji@4ax.com...

>><robertwessel2@yahoo.com> wrote:

>>>Reasonably common are 8, 16 and 24 page press sheets, and 64 page

> And, of course, a x32 press sheet requires *four* folds, not three.

How many folds to get 24 pages?

-- 
Bartc 

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#28747

"BartC" <bc@freeuk.com> writes:

> "Robert Wessel" <robertwessel2@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:qfpcb8d2k3g8h3n0qbr3la5kfh15uepiji@4ax.com...
> 
> >><robertwessel2@yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
> >>>Reasonably common are 8, 16 and 24 page press sheets, and 64 page
> 
> > And, of course, a x32 press sheet requires *four* folds, not three.
> 
> How many folds to get 24 pages?

 4: A Z-fold in one direction, and then two regular folds parrallel to
the other edge of the paper.

-- 
/Wegge

Leder efter redundant peering af dk.*,linux.debian.*

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#28748

On 28 Nov 2012 21:03:05 +0100, Anders Wegge Keller <wegge@wegge.dk>
wrote:

>"BartC" <bc@freeuk.com> writes:
>
>> "Robert Wessel" <robertwessel2@yahoo.com> wrote in message
>> news:qfpcb8d2k3g8h3n0qbr3la5kfh15uepiji@4ax.com...
>> 
>> >><robertwessel2@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> 
>> >>>Reasonably common are 8, 16 and 24 page press sheets, and 64 page
>> 
>> > And, of course, a x32 press sheet requires *four* folds, not three.
>> 
>> How many folds to get 24 pages?
>
> 4: A Z-fold in one direction, and then two regular folds parrallel to
>the other edge of the paper.


Exactly.

And to preempt the next question, you can't do 18 or 36 page sheets by
doing two z-folds, because you'd end up with loose single pages after
trimming.

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#28754

Robert Wessel <robertwessel2@yahoo.com> wrote:

(snip, someone wrote)
>>> You'd be surprised with what this desire to save paper forces some editors 
>>> to do.  For example, I was told that the style adopted for a table included 
>>> in the EN 1993-1 standard, which sacrificed pretty much any readability, was 
>>> due to economy reasons: someone wanted to reduce publishing costs by 
>>> avoiding having to print one or two extra pages on a 100-page document.

(snip, then I wrote)
>>I don't know specific numbers, but printing likes certain page counts
>>better than others. It might be that the choice was 100 or 120 pages.

>>If you look at a book from the end, you will see that pages come in
>>little groups, making it hard to add just one or two pages.

>>And you know we all want to keep the cost of standards documents down.
 
> OT digression into book printing:
 
> When printing book-style documents, the sheet physically printed (a
> "press sheet") most commonly has 32 pages printed on it (16 on each
> side), arranged in such a way that three foldings produce a section (a
> "signature") of book (16 sheets, 32 consecutive pages), in the correct
> order and orientation and ready to bind.  So the usual increment is 32
> pages.

Yes. I was trying to remember what they were called.
 
> Reasonably common are 8, 16 and 24 page press sheets, and 64 page
> sheets happen on occasion.  Sometimes a printer will put one smaller
> sheet at the end of a book (usually only with books mainly printed on
> 32 and 64 page press sheets), but that usually only happens on rather
> large press runs due to the extra setup work.
 
> And as you might expect, the cost is typically based on the number of
> press sheets.
 
> But the choice would unlikely be 100 vs. 120 pages, although 96 vs.
> 112 or 128 is certainly plausible. 

Yes, I said that I didn't know the exact numbers, and used those as
examples. I suppose in this group I could have used powers of two,
to make everyone happy.
 
> And yes, I've definitely seen people work to get under one of those
> boundaries.

-- glen

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#28725

Paul Sinnett wrote:

> I've been told by several people that the reason the K&R style was chosen
> for the C Programming Language book was because the publisher wanted to
> reduce the length of the book. But I've been unable to find any
> authoritative source for the story.

I don't know if that's true or not, but you will be hard-pressed to find a 
single book publisher that doesn't want to reduce the length of the books 
they publish.  I personally know of a case where a book publisher pressed 
the author of a technical book to edit down a 400-ish page draft to fit in a 
glossy 200-page publication.  

So, I suspect that the statement "the reason the $terse_style was chosen for 
$random_book was because $random_publisher wanted to reduce the length of 
the book" will essentially be true for pretty much every book published 
through a publisher.


Rui Maciel

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#28727

On Wednesday, 28 November 2012 10:56:27 UTC, Rui Maciel  wrote:
> So, I suspect that the statement "the reason the $terse_style was chosen for 
> $random_book was because $random_publisher wanted to reduce the length of 
> the book" will essentially be true for pretty much every book published 
> through a publisher.

I think the implication of the assertion is that it was a poor style choice imposed by the publisher which has since made life hell for a generation or more of C programmers. I'm guessing this assertion was created as part of a flame war of some kind.

But I've found nothing to back it up other than vague references that don't appear to exist in reality. From what I can tell K&R had a free choice of style and just happened to choose a popular one at the time.

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