Since I reviewed the book from which I learned C++, I probably ought to detail how I learned C. In the aforementioned operating systems class, the classwork was done in C. The C Programming Language was required for the class. The book is short; the main text is only 189 pages long, and that includes end-of-chapter problems. There’s a couple of appendixes. C itself isn’t a very big language, so this makes sense. Particularly when you consider that the authors of this book (Brian Kernighan & Dennis Ritchie), are also the inventors of C, though control for the specification of the language has long since passed to I.S.O./A.N.S.I.
Like C++ Primer, The C Programming Language does not cover design issues, nor good programming practices. All you’ll do is learn the syntax of the language and basic uses of it. Basically, it covers just enough to learn C, and no more. I like that approach best. Too verbose and I feel like I’m being patronized. Too spare, and I’m having to look things up elsewhere. There are now better languages for much of the software that people want, but C works well for a lot of basic programs and for some more complex ones. If you need or want to work on those, this book is the place from which to lean the language.
Title: The C programming language
Edition: Second
Authors: Brian W. Kernighan, Dennis M. Ritchie
Publisher: Prentice Hall
Format: Paperback
Length: xii, 272 p.
Publication date: 1988
ISBN-10: 0-13-110362-8
Subject: C (computer program language)
LC classification: QA76.73.C15 K47 1988
