Re:Ask HN: Should I use K&R to learn C?
by greenyoda on Tuesday April 07, 2015 @01:00PM
(#9335414)
When the second edition was published in 1988, there were seasoned C programmers, but security wasn't nearly the issue it is today. Since there was no World Wide Web yet, most computer systems weren't exposed to a global network full of people who wanted to crack code for profit. There was no e-commerce, no on-line banking, etc.
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Was the Morris Worm, which brought down a huge percentage of Unix Servers in 1988, the result of C?
In any case, there was definitely a network that was being used by a lot of people by 1988.
I think you're overestimating the impact of the Morris Worm - there weren't all that many servers to bring down.
The first commercial ISP in the U.S. was founded in 1989.[1] Until then, only a few people in universities and the tech and defense industries had access to the internet. According to this chart[2], the number of internet hosts in 1992 is barely distinguishable from zero on today's scale.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_service_provider#Hist...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Number_of_internet_hosts....
