top | item 42018894

(no title)

ksd482 | 1 year ago

How long before a textbook with C23 update is published?

I am asking because I am in the market for purchasing a book on the C programming language.

I am an experienced software engineer, but with experience in Java, Python, JS and other few languages. I would like to learn C and C++ deeply.

For C++, I ended up buying Stroustrup's "A tour of C++".

I am looking for something similar in C.

discuss

order

randomNumber7|1 year ago

"The C Programming Language" 2nd edition is the bible that every C programmer read. It is a very good book.

C didn't change that much, you can just read the new standard afterwards.

flohofwoe|1 year ago

I don't agree. K&R 2nd edition only goes up to C89, while C99 added tons of language changes which make C a much friendlier (and dare I say: safer) language (the two biggies are designated-init and compound-literals, but also tons of smaller things, like declaring variables anywhere, "for (int...", a proper bool type, fixed width integer types (uint8_t, ...) etc etc...) - I would even go as far to say that C99 is the most important C version and almost feels like a new language compared to C89 (after C99 the changes were mostly incremental though).

The 90s were the decade when C saw its biggest improvements, and K&R 2nd edition stops just short of that.

(the book is still a good read as an interesting historical artifact - it contains a lot of wisdom that goes beyond language details - but as a language reference or learning resource it is hopelessly outdated)

pjmlp|1 year ago

It is more like the old testament, relevant, but not the whole picture almost 40 years later.