C Programming Language, 2nd Edition

In 1988, The C Programming Language, 2nd Edition (affectionately referred to as K&R2) was first printed. Despite the passing of so many years, C's syntax and semantics have remained fairly stable. It is then fitting that K&R2 remains the de facto manual and reference for helping programmers get acquainted with the C programming language. Dennis M. Ritchie, one of the co-authors, is the original designer of C and also helped design the Unix operating system in the '60s. Brian Kernighan also helped with the design of Unix, AWK, and is noted for creating other well-known Unix programs. Not only are the authors well qualified, but they communicate very effectively in concise and clear language. The authors do not pander or condescend to readers. They make no claims to teach C in only one day; they actually expect readers to have a basic grasp on various programming concepts. The authors show an earnest desire to help programmers learn the language. The code examples provided are very helpful and exceptionally elegantly coded. As other reviewers have noted, they help instill good coding habits from the start. K&R2 provides a helpful introduction to programmers, which gives an overview of what the C programming language is (and is not). The introduction explains C's typing system and basic features. The meat of the book is well organized into chapters that sequentially build upon previous chapters. Chapter 5, "Pointers and Arrays," for example, does a great job at elucidating a difficult computer science concept. A lot of people are well aware of nasty bugs deriving from using pointers and arrays, but the authors explain pointers and arrays in a very clear way, which draws the important distinctions between them. After the main tutorial chapters, the appendix follows in an amazingly compact, yet thorough reference, which includes a C grammar, overview of the standard libraries, and more. Oftentimes, this reference is the most convenient and concise source for information (note that the C Standard is *the* authoritative source on the C specification). For example, the section covering the "*printf" and "*scanf" conversion specifiers is extremely helpful and much easier to digest than most man pages. For such a relatively small text, it's amazing how thorough it is. Although it's no substitute for having a copy of the ISO C Standard at hand, it's still an indispensable reference to have. Also, since C99 has yet to be fully implemented on many common implementations, developers still look to the ANSI C standard for ensuring their code is as portable as possible. I feel K&R2 is the best reference for learning C; it has been considered canon for all these years for a reason.

I'm not new to programming; in fact I've been doing it professionally for the past decade. Although I've played around in quite a few different languages, most of my work over the last 6 years has been in .NET (C# mainly). I have always had an interest in C because I love its simplicity. Also, it's a language which brings one closer to the machine, stripping away many of the abstractions that higher level languages provide. Higher level languages (such as Java, C#, Python, etc.) are massive and powerful with HUGE frameworks, but I'm attracted to simple things. This book is a feisty little devil! I had heard of this book before diving in (it is a classic), but its size and table of contents lead me to believe I would breeze right through it. Wrong! Picking up the syntax wasn't too difficult and I have a fairly good handle on more advanced concepts like pointers already, but this book is absolutely packed with exercises and many of them are quite challenging! Here's one: "Write a program to check a C program for syntax errors like unbalanced parenthesis, brackets and braces. Don't forget about quotes, both single and double, escape sequences, and comments." This is a chapter 1 exercise! Chapter 1 is just a tutorial introduction chapter and this is one 1 of 24 exercises in this chapter! No wonder it takes people years to work through this tiny book. I'm only about halfway through as I write this review. This book is the perfect blend of reference material, practical knowledge and challenging exercises. There is absolutely no fluff and not a single word is wasted. I grow tired of pouring through 1,000+ page tomes. The appendices are also very well structured and extremely helpful. Although I do virtually no C coding professionally, I can say for certain that this book has leveled up my skill-set. Working through these exercises has helped me with logical thinking and having a better understanding of coding closer to the machine has improved me as a developer overall. I'm one who believes that this book is great for all programmers, even if you never write a line of C after working through this book. I'm really loving the C language! Whether you are a beginner or experienced it's worth having this book. Though this will be quite tough for total beginners, I say it's still work picking up and pairing it with a more beginner-friendly book. Unfortunately I cannot recommend such a book at this time because this is the only C book I've worked through.

This book is literally the holy grail of programming books. It never assumes you are stupid or talks down to you. It is a very small book compared to the tomes you see sitting on store shelves for most programming languages but this is because it manages to convey the information in the quickest possible manner. It has plenty of code examples for you but it doesn't ever hand you the solution to the problems it challenges you with. If you make it through this book and follow along with all the exercises and complete all the challenges then you will have a working knowledge of the C language. You might not be the greatest programmer in the world when you finish but you will have the most solid foundation possible to build upon. At first a lot of the concepts might not make sense and you may find yourself reading some chapters multiple times, I know I did. The book is challenging but like most things worth learning in life programming is not easy. Programming is a long journey and one where you never really stop learning. Everything you do in this book make seem pointless and you may think that you are doing simple tasks the long way because in some ways you are but no one ever started programming by writing a AAA application on the first try. Don't buy into books that promise to teach you how to build hardcore games or applications right off the bat. You need a foundation for that knowledge and this is where you can get it. Don't jump in the deep end of the pool before you learn to swim or you may regret that decision later. Having been programming for years this is one of the few books that I continue to carry with me and it has survived every summer cleaning of my bookshelf. It truly is an invaluable resource. I suggest you pick it up if you have any interest in programming.

This is by far the best quality over quantity tech related book I've ever had the pleasure to read yet. Personally I came from a Python background before starting this book, and with it having such clean and easy to write programming style, I was always very intimidated by C, C++, Java, and so on. Well let me tell you this book makes C so much easier and so much less intimidating, it's still a HARD book but it's written and explained so well that with some basic programming knowledge you can learn A LOT from this book. One of my biggest struggles with Python was using it's giant library of pre-built and importable functions that are built into the language. C still has a lot of this built in, but what's different with this particular book is it really TEACHES you how to build functions and programs and breaks down every part and stage of it incredibly well (Seriously, I was blown away by the first chapter of this book which acts as a basic tutorial.) The biggest thing I've taken from starting this book is it's helped me begin to appreciate a language like Python more since it has tons of useful and already built in functions, but going back to an older language like C has opened my eyes up to programming like never before. Using modern languages is "easier" to learn, but if you really want to become a better programmer you need to go back to where we came from to how we got here today. Also even though I may not use C very often (I'm studying to become a Sys Admin), I feel like it's very beneficial for me to improve my programming skills as a whole and I feel like working with C so far has made working with Python even easier. In conclusion, I would highly recommend this book for someone wanting to learn C or if you have already learned one language and wanted to possibly challenge yourself by using an older language that may not be quite as elegant looking. Interestingly though, the authors make C seem incredibly clear and readable because it's all explained and written so well that you quickly forget how intimidating the language looks. 10/10.

The contents of this book are awesome, truly a no time wasted, full and complete manual of C. It is clear that the author has great knowledge of the language. That the book is great is no news, if you are new to C this is a great starting point and it is highly suggested. It is worth reading even if you are not new to C, but have never had that full coverage that this book would provide. However as much as I encourage experienced developers that are new to C to read this, I discourage beginners of the programming world to get it. The reason is that this book is more of a manual about C itself rather than a book teaching you how to program. The book will teach you how to write a for loop in C, but not what a for loop is, essentially. This is great for experienced developers who don't need to go over the basics for the 40th time, but its a headache for the newbies. The book is also very dense; there are no wasted pages here. Every sentence contains knowledge that sometimes you are expected to unpack and understand yourself with any simplification or "spoon feeding". Overall a great read, highly recommended. Of course the book is old, going all the way back to the standard C89 (whereas the first edition didn't even follow a standard, since back then there wasn't an ISO standard as the book itself explains). The good news is that C has such little changes that ANSI C / C89 is a great resource. However you will most likely need to pick up another, more modern and updated book, to catch up with newer standard such as C23.

As someone reading through this the first time it really is amazing despite the fact it was printed years ago my skill has already started increasing. The book shows you really helpful things and tips and tricks that online tutorials miss out (Not surprising since this is from the creators of the language themselves) it is much more detailed and gives you much more useful information and functions than you'll find online, and it also give you understanding and logic behind it and explains why you do some stuff and not others. The Language used in this book is intermediate so it's not dumbed down, meaning It will not teach you programming absolutely from 0% Scratch you need to have some familiarity with the terms and ideas like Variables, Strings, Functions, Compilers all the basic things. Any basic familiarity understanding or experience in other basic languages will do like Python, Java, Lua or whatever. Other than that you should be alright and the book explains the more complex concepts and gradually you'll gain the skills needed to write more complex programs. If you want to be an expert I'd definitely recommend this book. This book also gives example programs and tutorials and explains every line it writes, but don't over explain it, as in they come back to some things later on in the book as not to distract from the main thing being taught at the point you are at. This book also tries not to do too much hand holding and gives you exercises to write programs for yourself and lets you figure out some stuff by yourself as it acknowledges that the best way to learn to program is to actually do it rather than just read about it. I haven't ran into any compatibility issues yet meaning that none of the things the books have taught me so far hasn't worked because of the age of the book, all the things I've learnt so far you are still able to apply when coding without running into errors when compiling and running, if you do they're usually minor and can be fixed with a quick google search but its rare when you do. Anyhow this book has a nice clear contents page and references to things like useful libraries and functions you can include when coding, so you can find the section relevant to you if you wish. This book also has a lot of content to cover so you'll always be learning new things and getting better, it starts of with a nice tutorial introduction to ease you in. Other books I've read on C are usually very very basic and underwhelming and you end up already knowing like 90% of the things taught, whereas this book actually shows you everything. Although don't expect it to constantly hold your hand. If you have a drive for learning and you're determined to write programs this book is definitely for you if you're lazy and want a (Learn programming language in 24hrs or 7days) guide and shortcuts this isn't for you, neither is that even realistic. I'm definitely gonna stick with this book!

Very good book

arrived in good condition