B
Barièeviæi
Can somebody list some books or internet pages concerning c leraning
tutorials?
If it was posted I appologize
tutorials?
If it was posted I appologize
J
jacob navia
You can download a tutorial, and its associated C compiler from:Barièeviæi said:
http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~lcc-win32
N
Nick Keighley
unfortunately they now publish it on thicker paper (really)
so it can now only teach more about C than many books nearly twice
the size.
N
Nick Keighley
J
jacob navia
Richard said:
This is not true since the download is without any charge for the user
This is another attempt by heathfield to misrepresent lcc-win.
Sure sure, and heathfield is not a c programmer.
This is just not true
Contrary to heathfield, I do not say:
"This book is the best of the best, The first and final stop for all
your readings"
This is not true
This is not true
You have no right to download or use my book, nor my compiler.
I can recommend to fix the bugs in your book before you give lessons
to anyone here
J
James Kuyper
jacob said:
Your web site says "if you use it professionally you have to have to buy
a license". Is this no longer true? That web page doesn't indicate how
to get a license - are they now available for free? But in that case,
what does it mean when it says "contact us for special educational
rates."? If your commercial licenses are free, then why would special
rates be desirable for educational use?
If you do have charge money for licenses that allow commercial use of
lcc-win32, then you do have a commercial interest in the product.
There's nothing wrong with having a commercial interest in a product,
but it does tend to put your objectivity with respect to that product
into question, and it's entirely appropriate to point that fact out to
someone who might be unaware of that fact.
To the OP: Richard Heathfield, and many others, consider a compiler to
be a C compiler only if it implements no intentional deviations from
full C compliance. Jacob is using a more relaxed version definition of
"C compiler", one that he's never clearly specified.
He did not say that about his own book, and he did not suggest that you
have said that about your tutorial. However, a tutorial with the
features he describes is a bad starting point for learning C, unless one
has deliberately made the choice to restrict one's future career
development to Windows and lcc-win32.
Are you saying that it is not true that the tutorial confuses them?
It talks about the "space reserved for the "function[']s arguments", but
it doesn't actually use the word "parameter" anywhere in that section
except for the title; no one who doesn't already know what "parameter"
means in a C context would be likely to realize that the space you refer
to is the space which contains the function parameters.
Or are you suggesting that it's not true that "the distinction between
them is vital"? I think the distinction is vital.
....
Are you saying that it is not true that "the table claims that there are
two flavours of char" or that it is not true that there are three?
The standard's pretty clear about the fact that plain char is distinct
type from the other two, though it has the same representation as one of
the other two. However, since "flavour" is not a term with a
well-defined meaning in a C context, you could reasonably claim that it
refers to the representation, rather than the type; there are only two
different representations. However, that's far less than perfectly clear.
Your web site specifies no restrictions on who can download from it,
except for specifying that a license is required for non-commercial use.
On what grounds do you deny that he has a right to download them? You
might want to modify your web site to say that "downloading for the
purpose of critiquing this software is strictly prohibited", or whatever
wording you think most accurately conveys your objection.
He has made errata available, and he's not giving lessons, he's
recommending getting lessons from other people.
B
BartC
Barièeviæi said:
Googling for "C programming tutorial" didn't turn up anything?
O
osmium
:
Would you please at least pretend to be an adult and stop boring us all with
your tiresome vendetta against Jacob Navia?
Thanks a lot.
Would you please at least pretend to be an adult and stop boring us all with
your tiresome vendetta against Jacob Navia?
Thanks a lot.
B
BartC
Keith Thompson said:
So no different to most google searches then.
I did check beforehand and there seems to be quite a bit of useful material
out there. Unless you're a discerning connoisseur such as RHe of course then
you might be harder to please.
Usually google definitely isn't my friend and I would not suggest it, but
the amount of C programming material around is huge enough that even google
can hardly miss it. (A lot of it is pretty old though.)
F
Flash Gordon
Richard said:
It seems to have been hit by a/some user creation bots, I don't think
the real content has been hit. I'm going through deleted the spam.
P
Phil Carmody
Richard Heathfield said:
It's not a vendetta to repeatedly correct someone who persistently
posts things of little or negative use. It may to some appear to be
a waste of effort, but if Jacob persists with his posts _someone_
will persist with picking his frequent misdirections and mistakes
to pieces.
That's lost on me. I know it's OT, but can I have a pointer please?
Thank you. Shame osmium couldn't work out such a cunning editorial
technique.
Phil
J
jacob navia
Phil said:
I do post code here, I do post help to people.
I have written a C compilation system without the help of anyone, and
without anyone's financing. It is a very popular C99 implementation,
with more than 1 million downloads since we started counting, some 4-5
years ago.
This has been a huge effort for the C community, an effort that has
been here repeatedly misrepresented as being selfish or plain commercial
by people whose only credentials are to complain about my compiler
in this group.
If I propose to that poster that asked for a tutorial to download my
tutorial is because I have taken from my time countless hours to write
that 500 pages tutorial in the first place!
I try to explain there how a compilation system
for C works from the ground up.
To see people like this heathfield guy say that my work is not a C
compiler and similar nonsense is preposterous. But in this group is
possible, since what it counts here is group-think and not actual
accomplishments.
That is why even if my programs work and are successful that will never
count in the eyes of people that can't do anything else but discuss
endlessly the same old questions here, or denigrate the work of others.
What have YOU contributed to the C community Mr Carmody?
My compiler system and all my posts are "of little or negative use"
to you, but then... how come that they are so largely used?
Yours sincerely
jacob navia
J
jacob navia
Richard said:
This is the only thing I think needs to be clarified from your
ramblings.
I did start with the lcc compiler, as I have made abundantly clear.
(I didn't even change the name).
But from a compiler that generates ascii text to a compiler system
complete with assembler, linker, debugger, make utility and whatever
there is quite a distance.
I said that I wrote the compilation *system* even if all the code in the
original lcc is completely rewritten for increased performance.
And this doesn't disminish the work of Chris Fraser and Dave Hanson
at all.
I won't reply to any further posts from you.
It is just not worth the effort.
O
osmium
Richard Heathfield" said:
If that doesn't desribe a vendetta, WTF does?
I would suggest that Jacob fix the parameter/argument thing, I can't get
very worked up about the other things.
I don't spend all my waking hours obsessing about this stuff, but as I
semi-interested bystander, I thought the vast majority of compilers are not
C compilers by the standards you apply to him. I know my compiler allows //
comments but if I tried to use the built in complex numbers, I am quite sure
it would barf. So it is not a C compiler, QED.
J
jacob navia
osmium said:
The whole section reads like this
<quote>
What are “function parameters” ?
When you have a function like:
int fn(int a) { ... }
the argument (named a) is copied into a storage area reserved by the
compiler for the functions arguments. Note that the function fn will use
only a copy, not the original value. For instance:
int fn1(int a)
{
a = a+7;
return a;
}
int fn2(void)
{
int b = 7;
fn1(b);
return b;
}
The fn2 function will always return 7, because function fn1 works with a
copy of b, not with b itself. This is known as passing arguments by
value. This rule will not be used for arrays, in standard C.
When you see a statement like:
printf("Hello\n");
it means that the address of the first element is passed to “printf”,
not a copy of the whole character array. This is of course more
efficient than making a copy, but there is no free lunch. The cost is
that the array can be modified by the function you are calling. More
about this later.
<end quote>
From this, heathfield says I do not explain the difference between
passing by value and passing by address. That is just bad faith, only to
be had from a PEDANT. "Argument" and "parameter" are using
interchangeably in common day language.
From Dictionary.com we get for "pedant:
1. a person who makes an excessive or inappropriate display of learning.
2. a person who overemphasizes rules or minor details.
3. a person who adheres rigidly to book knowledge without regard to
common sense.
I think all of them apply to this guy.
K
Keith Thompson
jacob navia said:
Good for you. Seriously.
Since lcc-win is based on lcc, I have to question the assertion that
you wrote it "without the help of anyone". (This is not a criticism
of you or your work, though I don't expect you to believe that.)
You call it a "C99 implementation". Without arguing about the meaning
of that phrase, does your implementation fully implement the C99
standard? That's an important question which you've dodged in the
past.
The primary objection was not to your mention of your tutorial,
but to your failure to mention your own association with it.
You provided the original poster with a URL, but did not mention
that it was your own work.
I have no problem with your posting a recommendation for something
that's your own work. But it's only polite, in my opinion, to
acknowledge that fact.
(There were also some technical criticisms of the tutorial itself;
I won't go into those here.)
[snip]
And as long as I have your attention (assuming you've read this
far), have you reconsidered your recent claim that the "regs"
have criticized you regarding lcc-win's undocumented ansic89 option?
F
Flash Gordon
osmium said:
It could be laziness, not bothering to find more errors. However, I do
think making that statement was going a bit far, simply saying that he
had not gone further through the tutorial would have been sufficient.
The others are important as well. Properly invoked a compiler will
generate a diagnostic if you pass it a pointer to (un)signed char when a
pointer to char is required. If dealing with freestanding
implementations, knowing that the entry point might not be main is
important (and the tutorial talks about freestanding implementations).
I think you will find that if given the right options it will fully
conform to a version of the C standard, probably either C90 or C95, and
will diagnose // style comments.
B
BartC
Richard Heathfield said:
I don't know what proportion of the lcc-win32 project still consists of lcc.
But how small a proportion would that have to be for you to admit that it
might now be a largely independent effort? (For my own projects, I made sure
they were 100% my own code, to avoid exactly this kind of argument.)
There is nothing after all to stop anyone downloading and using lcc instead
of lcc-win32, so there must be a good reason for someone to prefer the
latter over lcc.
Not having used lcc, I wouldn't know but might guess it might be that
lcc-win32 works out of the box and is complete with headers and libraries
not only for standard C, but for Windows, and for a host of other common
addons, together with the other utilities mentioned.
Perhap even the excellent tutorial might play a part, describing not just
the usual C stuff but showing what is possible by going beyond the standard
language a little way, which is a good way to keep it interesing. But to
dismiss the lot because on one page it might have mistakenly described an
argument as a parameter or whatever it was ...
K
Keith Thompson
[...]jacob navia said:
Yes, but they are not properly used interchangeably in discussions of
C. They are two very different things, (you can look up their
definitions in the C standard), and a tutorial of all things should
clearly make the distinction.
Suppose someone posts a program here that looks like this:
#include <stdio.h>
void func(int x)
{
printf("x = %d\n", x);
x ++;
}
int main(void)
{
int x = 42;
func(x);
printf("x = %d\n", x);
return 0;
}
Of course we all know that the output will be
x = 42
x = 42
but how do you explain that to an inexperienced C programmer? I'd say
that modifying the parameter doesn't modify the argument, along with
an explanation of the words mean.
K
Keith Thompson
BartC said:
I don't know, but that's not the point. I'll gladly acknowledge that
lcc-win32 may be a "largely independent effort", and that may have
been what jacob *meant*, but it's not what he actually wrote. What he
actually wrote was
I have written a C compilation system without the help of anyone,
...
(That's an incomplete quotation, but I don't think any of the meaning
is lost by quoting it out of context.)
Nobody here has claimed otherwise.
Nobody here has claimed otherwise.
Personally, I'm less concerned with the errors in the tutorial
than with jacob's reaction when they're pointed out. But Richard,
by his own account, simply started reading the tutorial and found
three major errors in about 10 minutes. Each error by itself may be
minor, but the implied density of errors is worrying. Perhaps the
rest of the tutorial is error-free, but that seems unlikely.
If jacob is unwilling to accept criticism of his tutorial, perhaps he
should stop posting links to it here.