K&R Wishlist

[Keith Thompson]

<snip>

I'm going to assume you pulled a meta-joke by taking my suggestions
seriously... or otherwise you're trying to get some warming-up for an
improved "C for Dummies" book.

In which case, I'll want royalties.

No, there was no intentional meta-joke, I Just Didn't Get It. *blush*.

 

[Skarmander]

[...]


- If you get a warning or error that involves the word "pointer", look
at the offending line and add or remove * and & characters until the
error goes away.

I'm not sure that's very good advice. It's better to study the error
message and the code it refers to until you *understand* why the
compiler complained, and how to write the code correctly.

<snip>

I'm going to assume you pulled a meta-joke by taking my suggestions
seriously... or otherwise you're trying to get some warming-up for an
improved "C for Dummies" book.

In which case, I'll want royalties.

No, there was no intentional meta-joke, I Just Didn't Get It. *blush*.

The frightening thing is, I'm sure many prospective "Dummies" don't,
either...

S.

 

[Fao, Sean]

- Google offers a big library of ready-made C code. Use it to your
advantage.

- Should Google fail, try any book with a title ending on "in C".
Chances are, what you want to do is in one of them.

- If all else fails and you need to write a program yourself, don't
panic. Start from something that vaguely resembles the problem you're
trying to tackle and begin modifying it at random.

- If you get a warning or error that involves the word "pointer", look
at the offending line and add or remove * and & characters until the
error goes away.

- If you're really stumped on something, use Usenet (see "Usenet for
Dummies") and ask a question on comp.lang.c. The friendly folks there
stand at your attention to answer any question that involves C. You may
get a lot of responses that don't directly answer your question; just
ignore these.

Funny thing is, your advise might just be equal to or better than the
junk I saw in the "For Dummies" book I glanced over. If I remember
correctly, it was a Java book because I vaguely remember saying to
myself, "Yes, Java is for dummies" ;-).

 

[Corrupted Mind]

C For Dummies? Talk about an oxymoron.

I've glanced over only a single "for Dummies" book and it was probably
the worst book I ever wasted my time on. That along with the "Learn
[enter something here] in 24 Hours" books have always been worthless.

I did actually buy the C For Dummies ( vol 1 and vol 2 ) books for 10
cents each and even at this price that book is a fraud. I didn't
noticed it before I did get the K&R book. It cost me 60$ and compared
to the dummy one this book is extremely inexpensive.