Why am I passionate about this?
I started programming in high school and wrote software in many domains for 30 years, from the early ARPA-net to massive credit card software. I wrote a FORTRAN compiler with one assistant in a year. I got hassled to do proper project management. Nightmare. It was all about inflated expectations instead of moving fast and winning. Then in 25 years of venture capital investing, I learned from many young companies how the little startups built quickly and well things that giants like Google literally could not get done. This book and my others spell out what I learned from the little guys who beat the giants.
David's book list on teaching and inspiring the best programmers
Why did David love this book?
This is the defining book on the C language, written by the authors of the language and published in 1978.
By the early 1980’s it became the standard for writing systems software, helped by the fact that the UNIX operating system was written in it. UNIX grew to become the world’s dominant operating system, running over 90% of the world’s web servers.
By the time I encountered the language I already had programmed extensively in assembler, COBOL, FORTRAN, and other languages. I had written a commercial FORTRAN compiler. The language changed my world, and this book was unique then and now for being written by the creators of the language that changed the world of programming forever.
Nothing about all the languages since C makes things better – yes, including C++. All they do is add complexity and put unnecessary constraints on language, along with continuing the focus on language…
3 authors picked C Programming Language as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
This edition describes C as defined by the ANSI standard. This book is meant to help the reader learn how to program in C. The book assumes some familiarity with basic programming concepts like variables, assignment statements, loops, and functions. A novice programmer should be able to read along and pick up the language.
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