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.

I have been using this book for my programming class and as someone who is not the biggest fan of programming, this book has been quite helpful. It arrived in good condition as well.

So I have picked up and put down this book more times than I can count. I got this book originally in 2021. So this past week 06/09/2024, I started the book over. Read about a chapter and a half per day. Then today Sunday one week later I finally finished it. I've done some programming in C. So, my goal was not to do every exercise in the book, as I know I would not complete them and I would stop reading. The goal was to read the book from front to back reviewing the authors examples to the point I had some understanding of what was going on. Was this the greatest programming book I have ever read? No, no it was not. Was it good? Yes, in some spots. Will I use other books to further my knowledge. Absolutely... This was a hard book to read. I think if you're a low level programmer and that's your thing you will get more out of it than I did. I'm looking to build applications not systems. But I wanted to see how the engine runs. That was my goal with the book. So do I think I could build an engine now? No. Hell no.. There are easier to digest books that I think I actually learned more from. At this point if you're just getting started I would recommend starting out with Modern C for Absolute Beginners, Head first C, C Programming - Absolute Beginners Guide and or C Programming in Easy steps 5th edit. I would say I got as much out of those books as I did with this without the aggravation of feeling kind of stupid. If you are a person that can sift through densely packed material, then this book is for you. I'm not. But it's done and I can put it back on my shelf knowing it's read. Now on with my life.

This is by far the best C programming book I've ever read. I'd like to point out that this is not the no-brain book for beginners with no programming experience at all. You probably need to learn some computer architecture, data structure, algorithms, and other programming experience, even just python. The book is very concise, less than 200 pages for the body, but to the point. Neither complicated nor redundant. The examples are really great to illustrate the concept and some necessary programming skills. If you need to get to the hardware closer or learn algorithms further, I would like to recommend this book. If you are just doing data processing and have no need or interest to algorithm, I wouldn't recommend it. You can start from python or other well encapsulated languages. You can use lots of packages to finish the transaction work.

Great book. Well written and informative. Recommended.

Good textbook! Much thinner than I expected, I’m excited to use this for my class this semester.