Customer Reviews

C Programming Language (2nd Edition)

5 star:		(164)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This is the book. Period. If you don't own this, change professions.

This book is short and sweet. It gets straight to the point by keeping it simple(unlike many programming books that just wander off into the back woods talking about some complex programs when its trying to explain a simple syntac). I recommend this book along with C Primer Plus, then C unleashed if you wish to contiune that far down the beaten path.

If you are in any introductory Computer Science course, you are going to want a copy of this book. It's a quick and concise go-to manual that tells you exactly what you want to know without any fluff. Probably not a "lecture replacement" though, since again, it skips over theory and gets right to implementation, and "theory" is probably what you'll be tested on.

This is one of those books that is put aside on the shelf once you just start reading. One year later, you come back and have a go at it once more. Only this time you pause and think what a great book this has always been and you'd wish you had read it earlier.

Secondly alot of people here say this is *the* book for beginners. In my honest opinion, this is not so. It's way too technical for beginners to programming. My suggestion is that if you have any academic or professional background with C or any other language, then this book will serve you well. Otherwise don't buy this book, you will simply get lost. Read some good intro books on C which don't go into details. Once you get your feet wet, go ahead and buy this book. You will enjoy it.

There is a mis-paragraphing in the sections in chapter 5 where they are discussing the method alloc(). The value returned in the method code and the discussion of what the method returns is inconsistent. The discussion could have been put in better words.

Overall this is a very good book. A must have for serious C programmers. I would advise you to read the code *before* you read the discussion, it will help you undertsand better, especially if you like learning by example, otherwise, do as you please.

I am not a fan of huge 500-1000 page books on Computers. This book beats them all, well done K&R. Enjoy your read on this one when you buy it.

Cheers

In practical terms, ANSI C functions are buffered, meaning they consume more memory then they should compared to other third party languages like Borland Turbo C++ that have non buffered functions that work.(Old? Yes!! but still the best). ANSI C is supported, however in the presence of someone new to the language, it's fustrating at best to solve all the errors and warnings you receive even with the simplest of programs. Missing a ";" or "{" which are common mistakes. Sooner or later or sooner then you might think your going to create "MEMORY LEAKS" in your code using pointers. Remember I mentioned it was buffered, if you don't take action with built in functions like free() or fflush() you may be in for the long hull. Working with streams and pointers is tricky, and for most part there is no way around it writing code in "C".

Try learning the language, but for the time being, disable ANSI support. Micorsoft has disabled ANSI C by default in their development tools. As for the book, well you can judge for yourself if this is for you. Some of the code in the book is missing ";" or line terminators which causes all kinds of grief.

Yes, this is the classic text on C, but in 2003, there are better books.

If you want to know what went on in the designers mind in the creation of C, get this book.

If you need a tutorial about C, there are better choices.

I got this book and tried to use it to learn C. I got very frustrated and eventually went out and bought "C by Example" which is more of a beginners type book. After getting my feet wet with the basic concepts I came back to this book and could actually use it to learn from.

If you have no programming experience than I do not reccommend this as your first book. Get a more introductory book first and then dive into the K&R book.

For some reason, this book was assigned to one of my intro to comp-sci classes. It definitely does not fit such profile as it provides a great overview of the language, how it's built, how it works, and its applications, however, it does not teach to program. If you already know the basics of programming and are proficient in a similar language (e.g. Java), this may be an interesting read to understand the workings of the C language, but by no means expect it to provide little "classes" to teach you to be a C programmer.

Good overview of the language, targetted at more advanced programmers.

Often refered to simply as K&R, this book is the standard by which other technical books are judged. Written by the authors of the language, it is one of those rare books that combines brevity with clarity. It is a combination of an excellent tutorial book and a clear reference manual, and it also has a very useful index. This book has it all!

I refer to this book all the time and so does every professional C programmer I know. It's worth every penny.

If you are doing Unix/Linux programming the next book to get is "Advanced Programming in the UNIX(R) Environment"
by W. Richard Stevens.

Great book, not for people who nothing about programming. If you "look inside this book" (or find this book at a local bookstore) and can read the intro pages, you could see that they come right out and say that their target audience should know about variables, and other basics of programming (functions and decision making if-else, i think). I bought this book used, and apparantly the person who owned it before me did not check out the content nor what was assumed of the readers. Although it may sound kind of mean, I found it hilarious as I was flipping through the pages where he had written in things like "What's a double?", "whats this: || ?", "LOWER = 0; ?". If you're unsure whether this book is for you, click on that "look inside this book" above and try following along in the first chapter. If you get lost, get an easier book. If it's just right, then go for it.