Re:Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years (1998)
by lelanthran on Tuesday January 16, 2024 @05:25AM
(#39011672)
> programming books [...] a copy of "The C Programming Language"; changed my life.
My particular life-changing book was the BASIC manual that came the C64.
This was then reinforced when (~8 years later) I got Turbo Pascal, and it came with everything needed to get up to speed, then further reinforced when I started with Linux in 1995, and discovered that manpages (and info) were installed that basically got me up to speed on everything needed to write programs for that system. Later, late-90s, ISTR reading through the EGCS manual front-to-back.
I miss the days when the software came with all information required, instead of simply requiring you to search google for a product page or a manual.
I guess in about 5 years I'll miss the ability to easily google stuff (which I used to get in manuals) because all the relevant information got posted to discord and remained unindexed.
In early 2000s I learned sockets programming on Linux and FreeBSD completely from the manpages. Later I got Stevens' book and got through it very quickly, thanks to having already tried the manpages and written a few programs.
My particular life-changing book was the BASIC manual that came the C64.
This was then reinforced when (~8 years later) I got Turbo Pascal, and it came with everything needed to get up to speed, then further reinforced when I started with Linux in 1995, and discovered that manpages (and info) were installed that basically got me up to speed on everything needed to write programs for that system. Later, late-90s, ISTR reading through the EGCS manual front-to-back.
I miss the days when the software came with all information required, instead of simply requiring you to search google for a product page or a manual.
I guess in about 5 years I'll miss the ability to easily google stuff (which I used to get in manuals) because all the relevant information got posted to discord and remained unindexed.
In early 2000s I learned sockets programming on Linux and FreeBSD completely from the manpages. Later I got Stevens' book and got through it very quickly, thanks to having already tried the manpages and written a few programs.