C Programming Language, 2nd Edition

The book was delivered earlier than listed and in the condition listed.

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.

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.

Great book for me -- an adult reader with a technical background who is learning C. I'm already familiar with programming (do they call it "coding" nowadays?) and I've done a lot of work in Python. Given that, I found it easy to pick up C from the book.You could read this as a beginner as well -- I might get it as a gift for a smart high-school kid. But it won't be easy.The book is clearly written with good examples and exercises. Some of those exercises are pretty hard! I skipped most of them, because I have my own projects I want to do instead. But if you're learning C for the first time, I recommend them.

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.