How does it compare to KnR?

The article states that it’s “generally an average-to-poor book”. Is KnR a poor book?

I meant coverage, not impression. I think KnR is a great book.

I’m always a little confused by the hype of KnR. It seems like just an introduction on the syntax of c?

It doesn’t seem to really tell you how to build great programs with C or anything more complex than the absolute basics which you can find on the internet for free.

I found the Annotated ANSI C Standard by Herbert Schildt to be far more helpful in understanding C syntax than the K&R book ever was. I was lucky enough to find it in a local book store while still in high school in 1993.

Thanks, although I’m puzzled after reading that Schildt has “clear style that leaves the reader confident but dangerously ignorant.” [0]

[0] http://herbert.the-little-red-haired-girl.org/en/c-links/ind...

This book was so bad it inspired a new word:

http://catb.org/jargon/html/B/bullschildt.html

I'm going to start using this word :D

That's a different book than the one I was referring to. I was referring to The Annotated ANSI C Standard: American National Standard for Programming Languages-C : Ansi/Iso 9899-1990.

I learned C in the early 90's with one of Schildt books. I actually did learn something. So there is that. It has a place close to my heart but I have to agree with most. It's not a great book.

I wish I would have a couple of good examples at hand, though

The actual information is a bit out of date, and it's not a best practices manual or anything like that.

K&R's strength is its exceptional style. It's a real masterpiece in clarity, and sets a mark that most technical literature fails to pass.

I wonder why he finished the review. As soon as I determined it was average to poor, I would have stopped reading.

I found Modern C[1][2] to have more practical advice and much more detail than this book.

[1] https://gustedt.gitlabpages.inria.fr/modern-c/ [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21006995

* * *

Modern C is the best thing you can read about C short of the ISO standard.

I highly recommend Expert C Programming Deep C Secrets

Very dated but one of the best CS books I read, also has a lot of anecdotes about programming that are generally interesting

This book is so good I bought multiple copies because whenever I loan it out, I never get it back.

This is one of my favorite books on C, also because of the sense of humor of the author.

> it is not possible to understand the C language by just writing simple test programs to examine the behavior.

This is so well put, thank you.

> Integer types are unsigned by default, except for char.

unsigned by default? I'm pretty sure `int`, `long`, `short` and `long long` are signed by default.

and whether plain char is signed or unsigned is unspecified.

Actually it can be signed, unsigned or have a completely separate type which is neither signed char nor unsigned char.

Well, I meant that char can either be a signed or unsigned integer type. It is always a distinct type form either signed char or unsigned char.

O'Reilly recently published "Fluent C" (apparently inspired by the "Fluent Python", which I love). Any opinions on this one?