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Re: "Richard Stallman Announces C Reference"

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Tim Rentsch <tr.17687@z991.linuxsc.com> wrote:
> John Forkosh <forkosh@panix.com> writes:
> 
>> [...] what's your (and any others') review of the book?
>> Worth reading?  Or more importantly to me, good reference
>> (including good index, table-of-contents, and, of course,
>> good content)?
> 
> My reactions, fwiw...
> 
> The book is not so much about C as it is about Stallman's way of
> thinking about C.  If you want to think about C in the same way
> that he does, this book is almost certainly the best available.
> If on the other hand you want to think about C in the same way
> that C is described and defined in the ISO C standard, this book
> will probably be more distracting than helpful.  Looking over the
> book (I certainly didn't read the whole thing), my impression is
> RMS can't make up his mind whether he is writing a reference, a
> tutorial, or a style guide.  I realize that mixing these three
> aspects is common and fashionable these days when writing about
> programming languages, but personally it irks me.  K&R very
> wisely divided its material into two parts:  one, an introduction
> and informal description of the language, and two, a reference.
> That was an excellent choice.  The current blender style of
> mixing everything together is unfortunately more popular now.
> 
> Also, a low-level detail, but one worth mentioning:  the layout
> and formatting choices in the book, both for prose and for code,
> reflect (in all likelihood) Stallman's preferences.  I'm reminded
> of Abraham Lincoln's comment, "For people who like this sort of
> thing, this is the sort of thing that these people like."
> Personally I prefer a cleaner formatting and layout style (and
> yes both for code and for prose).

Thanks for the feedback. Yeah, I overall liked the K&R style
somewhat better, too (though I haven't read RMS's thoroughly
enough, i.e., barely browsed it so far, to really have any
opinion -- "so many pdfs, so little time", I'm lucky to read
one percent of the arXiv stuff that I'd like to). Even his
First Example seemed a poor choice given its obvious tutorial
intent -- should encourage readers to focus on syntax/semantics,
whereas even simple recursion makes you think about the algorithm.
-- 
John Forkosh  ( mailto:  j@f.com  where j=john and f=forkosh )

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"Richard Stallman Announces C Reference" Lynn McGuire <lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> - 2022-09-09 12:49 -0500
  Re: "Richard Stallman Announces C Reference" scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2022-09-09 19:03 +0000
  Re: "Richard Stallman Announces C Reference" Thiago Adams <thiago.adams@gmail.com> - 2022-09-09 12:54 -0700
    Re: "Richard Stallman Announces C Reference" gazelle@shell.xmission.com (Kenny McCormack) - 2022-09-09 20:06 +0000
      Re: "Richard Stallman Announces C Reference" John Forkosh <forkosh@panix.com> - 2022-09-10 02:00 +0000
        Re: "Richard Stallman Announces C Reference" John Forkosh <forkosh@panix.com> - 2022-09-10 12:09 +0000
        Re: "Richard Stallman Announces C Reference" Tim Rentsch <tr.17687@z991.linuxsc.com> - 2022-09-11 06:31 -0700
          Re: "Richard Stallman Announces C Reference" John Forkosh <forkosh@panix.com> - 2022-09-13 02:19 +0000
    Re: "Richard Stallman Announces C Reference" Keith Thompson <Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com> - 2022-09-09 13:10 -0700
    Re: "Richard Stallman Announces C Reference" scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2022-09-09 20:11 +0000
      Re: "Richard Stallman Announces C Reference" Thiago Adams <thiago.adams@gmail.com> - 2022-09-09 16:34 -0700
  Re: "Richard Stallman Announces C Reference" Bonita Montero <Bonita.Montero@gmail.com> - 2022-09-10 18:16 +0200
    Re: "Richard Stallman Announces C Reference" scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2022-09-10 17:04 +0000
      Re: "Richard Stallman Announces C Reference" Muttley@dastardlyhq.com - 2022-09-11 08:29 +0000
      Re: "Richard Stallman Announces C Reference" Manfred <noname@add.invalid> - 2022-09-24 16:24 +0200
        C++ is for real, C is just a toy (Was: "Richard Stallman Announces C Reference") gazelle@shell.xmission.com (Kenny McCormack) - 2022-09-24 15:54 +0000
          Re: C++ is for real, C is just a toy (Was: "Richard Stallman Announces C Reference") Bonita Montero <Bonita.Montero@gmail.com> - 2022-09-24 18:07 +0200
    Re: "Richard Stallman Announces C Reference" Muttley@dastardlyhq.com - 2022-09-11 08:29 +0000
      Re: "Richard Stallman Announces C Reference" Bonita Montero <Bonita.Montero@gmail.com> - 2022-09-11 11:16 +0200
        Re: "Richard Stallman Announces C Reference" Muttley@dastardlyhq.com - 2022-09-11 09:44 +0000
          Re: "Richard Stallman Announces C Reference" Bonita Montero <Bonita.Montero@gmail.com> - 2022-09-11 13:42 +0200
            Re: "Richard Stallman Announces C Reference" Muttley@dastardlyhq.com - 2022-09-11 15:44 +0000
              Re: "Richard Stallman Announces C Reference" Bonita Montero <Bonita.Montero@gmail.com> - 2022-09-11 17:55 +0200
                Re: "Richard Stallman Announces C Reference" Muttley@dastardlyhq.com - 2022-09-11 16:17 +0000
                Re: "Richard Stallman Announces C Reference" Bonita Montero <Bonita.Montero@gmail.com> - 2022-09-11 18:22 +0200
                Re: "Richard Stallman Announces C Reference" "Chris M. Thomasson" <chris.m.thomasson.1@gmail.com> - 2022-09-11 12:41 -0700
                Re: "Richard Stallman Announces C Reference" Bonita Montero <Bonita.Montero@gmail.com> - 2022-09-12 06:10 +0200
                Re: "Richard Stallman Announces C Reference" "Chris M. Thomasson" <chris.m.thomasson.1@gmail.com> - 2022-09-12 00:27 -0700
              Re: "Richard Stallman Announces C Reference" Bo Persson <bo@bo-persson.se> - 2022-09-12 09:18 +0200
                Re: "Richard Stallman Announces C Reference" Bonita Montero <Bonita.Montero@gmail.com> - 2022-09-12 09:42 +0200
                Re: "Richard Stallman Announces C Reference" Muttley@dastardlyhq.com - 2022-09-12 15:58 +0000
                Re: "Richard Stallman Announces C Reference" Bonita Montero <Bonita.Montero@gmail.com> - 2022-09-12 18:48 +0200
              Re: "Richard Stallman Announces C Reference" Juha Nieminen <nospam@thanks.invalid> - 2022-09-13 06:47 +0000
                Re: "Richard Stallman Announces C Reference" Muttley@dastardlyhq.com - 2022-09-13 13:29 +0000
                Re: "Richard Stallman Announces C Reference" Juha Nieminen <nospam@thanks.invalid> - 2022-09-14 05:56 +0000
                Re: "Richard Stallman Announces C Reference" Muttley@dastardlyhq.com - 2022-09-14 09:37 +0000
        Re: "Richard Stallman Announces C Reference" scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2022-09-11 16:26 +0000
          Re: "Richard Stallman Announces C Reference" Bonita Montero <Bonita.Montero@gmail.com> - 2022-09-11 18:35 +0200
        Re: "Richard Stallman Announces C Reference" Opus <ifonly@youknew.org> - 2022-09-12 19:22 +0200
          Re: "Richard Stallman Announces C Reference" legalize+jeeves@mail.xmission.com (Richard) - 2022-09-22 19:24 +0000
  Re: "Richard Stallman Announces C Reference" Manu Raju <MR@invalid.invalid> - 2022-09-11 00:01 +0100
    Re: "Richard Stallman Announces C Reference" Keith Thompson <Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com> - 2022-09-10 16:26 -0700
  Re: "Richard Stallman Announces C Reference" legalize+jeeves@mail.xmission.com (Richard) - 2022-09-22 19:21 +0000

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