mimmyjau's review
4.0
Loved the content, the exposition, the exercises, the briefness, the aesthetic, the simplicity, and even the literal "feel" of the cover and pages and weight of the book. The ethos of C is reflected in this iconic and quintessential manual. Though it's not often you can describe a technical book as charming, this one fits that description perfectly.
aaronmunger's review
3.0
Feels a bit outdated by using Pascal and fortran for their comparisons. Good discussion of language features and idioms, but I would have liked more coverage of compilation and project structure.
sebula's review
4.0
I would definitely recommend it! Before I read this book, I had a moderate understanding of C, but now I am fully confident and write much better C code. This is also a good lead up into C++ as it gives you a solid ground to work from into C++.
jmoravec's review against another edition
2.0
While I understand and appreciate the historical significance of this book, I really don't think it has aged well for the modern programmer. I found it to be a not bad refresher for the C language, but anything beyond that I would try to find another source to learn C. It felt to me that you already needed to know a fairly low level programming language to understand how to do something in C, compared to a modern learner who probably is using C to start learning more lower level ideas. It also compares C to languages which aren't in wide use anymore (at least for beginner languages), as well as referencing the C language prior to the ANSI standard (which feels pointless at this point in time.)
Again, I understand its a significant historical book for C, but if someone asked me for recommendations on a beginner textbook for programming or the C language, I wouldn't recommend this one.
Again, I understand its a significant historical book for C, but if someone asked me for recommendations on a beginner textbook for programming or the C language, I wouldn't recommend this one.
jardo's review
4.0
I have a first edition copy of this guy, which is totally outdated (K&R is pretty different from the later C standards) but is really fun for a read-through every now and then.